the pi is not only software, but mindshare. people understand it, there is a community, and many flaws have been worked around. (and it helps kids and other f

the pi is not only software, but mindshare. people understand it, there is a community, and many flaws have been worked around. (and it helps kids and other folks get started) There are lots of other "better than the pi" devices. The beaglebone was always better hardware than the pi (and almost the same price) and the onboard pru was interesting. The jetson nano series is pretty interesting and also does hardware well. The new banana pi does networking well and runs openwrt, which is another well-understood platform. That said, it is nice to be in an era of these interesting small devices.