To be fair it wasn't always like that. I remember a time when you could get a semi-top-of-the-line raspberry model for under 30 bucks. That was peak hobbyist time for me and I still have many of those lying around, but I haven't bought a new one for a long time now. First they went through some weird feature creep, then the pandemic hit with supply chain issues, then inflation, then the IPO... It's nice that the founders got to make bank with something that has immeasurable value for letting people discover modern tech, but somewhere along the line they got completely lost. Looking at the N100 I feel like building something again for the first time in years. It's not as pure as it was back then, but damn it is useful.
> tou can blink LEDs with an 5$ Arduino/ESP32 too.
At the time the RPi came out I don't believe Wi-Fi-enabled microcontrollers were a thing or were as widespread. RPi was the OG low-cost, popular Wi-Fi "microcontroller".
You are right that nowadays a lot of that can easily be done on an ESP32.
Raspberry pi didn't have built in WiFi until raspberry pi 3 in 2016 (of course you could use a usb adapter). I think around similar time esp 8266 (cheap microcontroller with WiFi) started becoming popular
There were some NRF boards with Wifi IIRC, but Raspi just worked and you could just use Python to do whatever you needed with GPIO instead of messing about with the kinda-sorta C but not quite.
Eh, i thinl they just changed their business model from hobbyist centric to industrial. Which slows the advancements because industry wants stability and longevity.
Im about to deploy pis in locations that use dumb 1200$ PLCs and esoteric ladder programs requiring technicians who know nothing about the logic of the system.
With Pi, we eradicate that artifice and allow self service and ease of upgrades.
