[aimor]

I've been thinking about this for a year or so. I currently have 7 Pis (5 Pi0ws and 2 Pi3s) running various projects at home. I started collecting them on Pi day each year, and any time I want to try something new I just grab a new one and go. A few weeks ago I took one on a plane and installed Pi OS on a 0w using the plane's wifi, then SSHed to the pi over USB and played with it that way. At home they're hanging off various UPS and power outlets, I once forgot about one powered by my basement router and I didn't notice for two years. It was still happily serving an old version of my cookbook.

Yeah, there's things I want to move to more powerful hardware. But it's a step up: it's more expensive, more setup, a more persistent system (even if everything's in containers). I wouldn't steer people away from using Pis based on that tradeoff, they still have a high ceiling for what they can do and when you do bump into that ceiling it's much easier to justify spending 10-100x for the right hardware. It took me 7 years of tinkering to hit that ceiling with my projects, I don't regret staying on Pis for so long.