Let's be real they fumbled the bag a long time ago. They could easily have had their own supply chain for ram etc.
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2026
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We went from cheap hobby computer to luxury item with emotional damage real quick π
Good news is that micro controllers and used office PCs are still fairly affordable by comparison... for now.
$270 of the price is for the RAM.
No thanks, I will buy an used AI mini PC that can do the same.
Aren't we trying to avoid AI ?
No more cheap portable control stations for DIY projects for now. π’
That's what you get for trying to have fun instead of gaining value for shareholders.
Well if size isn't important you can still get just a regular motherboard for less, especially if it's used.
Arduino?
It is a microcontroller, which has less computational power and used for other tasks usually.
I mean the modern RPI are much different then the older models. Much more advanced much better hardware.
This one has 16gb of ram for Christ sake. That's more then most phones.
AI has for sure made it more expensive but RPI haven't been the "cheap hobbiest IoT" device for many years now.
It's now in the realm of "professional hobbiest"
Yeah but I bought an 8gb pi 5 on release (09/23) for Β£79. The same sku is now Β£168...
They are at war against ownership (not raspberry pi org, but the general oligarchy). It's the next step coming after "every software is a cloud service subscription". We are heading towards the "you can't own a computer, just rent one from the cloud". In this day and age, computers are necessary, for everything, for education, public services, employment, entertainment. Once we have to pay taxes to the Lords in order to have access to our mean of substance, we are essentially in a new era of feudalism.
One could call it "technofeudalism".
That's exactly where this is headed. Modern day slavery. They take away the usability of offline devices so we only use their devices to use their apps and work for their companies, and anyone trying to circumvent this (VPNs, refusing Age Verification, Piracy, FOSS) gets visited by the technofeudalists' friends at ICEstapo.
yeah it's the "war on computation" that's the other term Cory Doctorow coined apart from "enshitification"
I'm not too worried about this. It sucks for the time being, and who knows how long they economy will suffer when the US fully collapses. The silver lining is that the actual cost of producing the hardware doesn't match the inflated evaluation of it. The drivers of this won't be able to sustain the hoarding. Don't get me wrong, it's bad. Anyone with a time machine would probably chose to give Peter and Sam a visit.
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To be fair, who needs 16GB of RAM on a Pi? The hell are you running on it that needs that? Are you trying to use it as a desktop?
Considering the 3 only had 2GB of ram, and the 4 only had 4GB of ram for the longest time, it's probably better to compare the 8GB model. Which is still $135.
Even the 1GB model is $50. Fucking ridiculous.
even at $135, what does a pi offer than i can't solve with an refurb/off-lease corporate 1L minipc?
Are you trying to use it as a desktop?
Why not. It has enough power. But you can easily consume all that RAM if you run Minecraft server, or crypto software
Ehhhhh it kinda has enough power.
I have an 8GB Pi5 we use as a desktop in our living room. PiOS is sluggish to navigate, even though itβs an 8GB pi5 running off an NVMe SSD instead of a memory card. Itβs just there to stream YT and Twitch and whatnot though, and it streams at 60FPS no problem once youβve got the stream pulled up.
I wouldnβt recommend it as a desktop PC though, as navigating the OS and loading programs is not a great experience.
But why would you do that on a raspberry?
I mean if you have one already go ahead do your thing! But here we're talking buying a new one.
At that price it's really pointless.
But at normal prices, you can slap passive radiator on it, and have perfectly decent server for these things taped to the wall behind your desk. Zero noise, minimal power consumption, works reliably 24h
Yeah sure, those small pieces are marvels for stuff like that!
It actually saves you decent money compared to regular optiplex. In 24h work power savings translate into meaningfully lower electricity cost over the year.
With 16GB you might just get away with a Jellyfin 10.11 instance.
No. I easily run that with 2gb RAM and over 60tb of shows.
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Fuck me, I thought it was an exaggeration
We do anything I guess. Keep leaving like Americans do every day.
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