The 400 is a good tool to learn basic programming which is admittedly what the goal set out by the foundation all those years ago.

The way I see it there are 3 primary consumer groups of pis: students, makers, and industry. 400 can work for students which is great, the other two need to share the original form factor. It was the makers who saw the potential of the pi and turned it into the richest ecosystem and best selling computer in history. They spent the money and made industry possible. I think to shun the makers for so many years in favour of industry is not right. It’s not a money issue either, makers could consume those 400000 pis a month.

If we want to talk about small business, what about all the little companies that sell pis and make this possible? What about the little companies that designed and built all the HATs and cases? Can’t imagine many people are buying those like they used to.

The competition has not been idle for all these years, there are alternatives. We will have affordable, performant risc-v boards this year. We have the rk3588 boards which are highly performant and will be the platform of choice for years to come. We have the rk3399 boards which are 100% supported in mainline and can be booted completely blob free. The software is not often not as complete as the pi but that is actually changing because they are actually available so we are developing for them.

All in all I’m just sad. I want to develop for the pi but they have decided we aren’t even worth the scraps. I want to spend my money and huge amounts of my free time to make this a better product for everyone but I can’t. I just think they have lost the goodwill of the makers and it will never be what it once was. That’s sad.