[xyzelement]

A bit of a first hand experience - my father in law runs a small manufacturing firm in the US. In the past few years they've designed a new hardware item with a Pi at the core.

When the supply issues happened, they were concerned about not being able to manufacture the devices. That's a multi million dollar investment at stake not to mention the employees and customers that would be impacted. Luckily they figure out a supply.

Compared to that, my as a hobbyist having to be patient to get another pi is completely incosequential.

[skelpmargyar]

If they have a multi million dollar investment at stake and they're not able to pivot to any of the other many SBCs out there then they might just be incompetent. The Pi has nothing particularly special about other than it's well documented and cheap.

[xyzelement]

I mean obviously yes you can redesign and retool manufacturing if you really need to but it's not ideal and best to avoid.

Between "retool" and "hobbyist wait" one seems worse.

You may remember car manufacturers had to shut down assembly lines due to chip shortages in the last few years even for non-critical chips. Redesigning around missing components is non trivial though obviously doable

[HeyLaughingBoy]

> it's well documented and cheap

And in one sentence you've nailed its value proposition perfectly. That's what is so special about it.

[internetter]

> In the past few years they've designed a new hardware item with a Pi at the core.

I think the argument is that there shouldn't be a Pi at the core

[xyzelement]

It seems to be a weird argument to make since the Raspberry Pi foundation itself is positioning PIs as advantageous for industrial use.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/for-industry/powered-by/