for context: just upgraded to pi 5 after owning the original for over 11 years and still in service! i get that for most people reading this, rpi has been abou

for context: just upgraded to pi 5 after owning the original for over 11 years and still in service! i get that for most people reading this, rpi has been about a cheap computing platform to run containers at home. personally, i thought all that was a byproduct of a larger goal of making computing accessible. however, past five years seems to me that the foundation is side-stepped for commercial ambitions. i think that rp2040 is an excellent platform and evolution of promoting tinkering. every other design decisions no longer seem aligned with the goal of accessibility. till this day, unless you live in cambridge or near a micro center, getting one is still down to trusting resellers. before the design would go out of the way for compatibility (see composite video), and the only things that would stand out was stuff like hardware codec licensing. now, there are so many weird decisions, like micro-hdmi and needing a specific power supply and cooling to use the latest pi optimally (i had an issue with usb boot out of the box while using a standard 18w charger). whether you put it all down to inflation, getting started from scratch with rpi might still be remotely in the ballpark of buying a toy if you go for several year old models. when i bought my first pi, i was too scared to try its gpio pins because of the fear of bricking it. now with the new one and the official case that hides them away, you can forget tinkering with that. now it seems that rpi is now more aligned to our audience than tinkerers. now with the "AI kit", and other decisions, it is hard to believe that the foundation and its original goals are going to be a major focus going forward.