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RIP RPI
this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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No change in current focus, which happens to be the business sector. :)
I wouldn't necessarily read too much into this.
I think most people's aversions to the concept of IPOs stems from the fact that it lies at the end of the not-too-uncommon lifecycle of VC-backed companies:
- Get VC investment
- Subsidize your product using said investment
- Grow like hell on account of handing out things at a too-low price
- Prepare for IPO by worsening the deal for customers to improve financials (also known as enshittification)
- Use IPO money to pay off VCs and leave both them and founders with a large chunk of money
Post-IPO the company has to abide by the regular rules of being a company, meaning that they never really re-capture what it was like when they had a large stack of free money to make all deals sweeter than the competition.
All this to say is that the damage is done once you raise VC capital. Raspberry Pi has raised one fairly small round, so there's potentially some damage done there, but it's way less than your average tech startup did throughout the years, so this doesn't necessarily have to mean that everything will go to hell now.
Thanks for explaining the cycle, my assumption was that bringing in board members is what ruins everything.
No, going overnight from running at a massive loss to "time to make loads of cash" is what ruins everything.
So, when Raspberry Pi is inevitably enshitified if they go through with this, who's gonna be the next big (rather, small) company to get something Pi equivalent to run an OS like Lakka or Recalbox?
I honestly don't know since I don't know of any other companies making these kinds of mini computers.
There are plenty of alternative SBCs out there, many mimicking the RPi form factor as well. Look into Radxa, Banana Pi, Orange Pi, Pine64, ODROID, etc. I picked up an Indiedroid Nova board last year that is RPi form factor but has the more powerful RK3588 processor. Drivers are still WIP but it is quite fast. I also run my home server on a Radxa Rock Pi 4, which has an RK3399 processor and is very comparable to the RPi 4. Drivers for it are pretty solid these days and it doesn't require extra work to set up. Just download an Armbian image and go.
Any non-rockchip ones tho? Beagle has been dead for a bit.
Pretty much all the alternative SBCs are either Rockchip or Allwinner if you want ARM. There are a few RISC-V SBCs now but software support isn't as solid and many of these lack GPUs. There are also a few x86/64 SBCs based on either older Intel Atom or newer mobile parts too.
Yea in one of my other comments down somewhere here I mentioned riscv as a hopeful future option, maybe with someone like AMD spending some resources to bring another viable solution to market. I know AMD is working on RISCV, they’ve got some low power SOCs already. I’m wondering if they got something in the pipes…
SBCs are a fairly mature space nowadays. Plenty of options.
There are literally dozens of alternative products to the Raspberry Pi, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Do a web search for "single board computer" or even just "raspberry pi alternatives", and see for yourself.
Fair enough.
How can the not-for-profit side of business expand with an IPO? People invest specifically to increase their wealth. How's this going to happen with a non-profit business?
Surely those shareholders just fucking love Raspberry Pi so damn much that they just have over their cash no questions asked.
You're forgetting that superannuation, 401k, retirement funds that everyone pays for goes into stocks too.
Technically speaking you could be a shareholder.
In an ideal world, the company can use this to further expand without taking on debt.
What raspberry pi will do though, we shall see. But it's not always so black and white.
"I don't expect to see any change in how we do things."
Oh, this is going to age like fucking milk. You belong to the shareholders now, mate. They'll MAKE you change how you do things, and you'll love it.
What do we want?
_More profit! _
When do we want it?
Now!
Well, I guess I've bought my last pi then, was nice while it lasted
RIP Raspberry Pi
I personally don't know of any company that has gotten better post-IPO than they were before. Would be enlightening it if anyone could suggest examples or personal anecdotes.
I've prepared for you a comprehensive list, here:
That's a wholly complete list indeed. Must have been tough to put together /s
They always say there is no change after IPO.. But there always is..
So who is the new raspberry pi?
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