[analog31]

Naturally, price and availability are intertwined. In this industry, availability is easy to see, because the manufacturers keep track of inventories on their own shelves and at their distributors. And there are tools for researching substitute parts, such as Octopart.

Even if you can find a substitute, it can take engineering effort to accommodate it, such as board changes and testing. Oh, and the people who can do this, have all moved to software engineering jobs that pay more, or they retired during the pandemic.

My tiny side business just went through this. The chip that I need became unavailable, as did all reasonable substitutes, at any price. I had to re-design my board in order to accommodate a different chip. Fortunately my labor is cheap and available, but dumping a whole bunch of that kind of work on a commercial business, all at once, can be painful.