If I had one of these as a teenager in the early 80's I'd have fainted with idea overload. But as it stands we had 8 bit processors running at 1-2MHz and 32-64k of memory.
may I ask where can I buy Pi Zero for 5 dollars? Even on Aliexpress (perhaps I wrongly assume it's the cheapest place to buy) there options start from $15 and up https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=S...
I'm not trying to invalidate your argument in any way, just genuinely curious. Also, does anyone know the actual production cost of such device?
it says 1 is 4.99, but multiple is 10$ when I saw it
The person buying 10 at a time is just buying the boards, so no extra items other than maybe a PSU. If you really want 10 at $5 go every day at lunch, that's what I did.
I’d say that your criticism could be seen as “why use a microcontroller when you could just use a PLA?” Well, there are a lot of reasons why you might choose a PLA, but microcontrollers are cheap these days and easier to program. And the Raspberry Pi is also cheap and easier to program than microcontrollers.
The Pi is easier to program than a microcontroller, more powerful, and still quite cheap. Cheap enough that it’s sometimes being kept in “production” designs.