[clysm]

> Most PCBs aren’t distributed to consumers as bare PCBs, so this issue rarely appears to end users.

In terms of hobby/maker electronics, embedded systems, etc., which the Raspberry Pi falls under, yes they absolutely are. The entire Arduino ecosystem is like this.

[swores]

Raspberry Pi does indeed have users for whom it's in the same category as things like Arduino.

But it also has lots of users for whom it is simply a cheap computer to plug into a screen / mouse / keyboard, people for whom the only interesting things about the hardware are its price and size.

(I've no idea what the ratio is, but I would guess the majority of customers are the latter type; though possibly not the majority of Pi's sold, since the former group contains people much more likely to buy multiple devices, whether someone like me who's bought a few for tinkering with, or someone actually doing something interesting and needing either 100s for their own project, or 1000s to go into something they're selling.)

So what you said is true for some, but far from all, Pi consumers.

[AStonesThrow]

During the pandemic, there was a noticeable shortage of Pis on store shelves. Comments by hobbyists indicated that the existing supply was being snapped up by small-time manufacturers who had designed commercial products around the Pi as a base, and end-users weren’t receiving priority or first dibs at them.