I love raspberry pis but pi-mania is absolutely out of control. I can't count how many $100+ programmer hours I have seen wasted waiting for a $10 pi to boot, build, or generally stop being slow. I have witnessed the deep shame of a multi-million dollar exhibition center-featuring a RPi kiosk deployed in front of customers that chugs so hard the sales team takes shifts intercepting people before they can poke at it and realize how much of a dog it is. But at least they saved $200 on not using a laptop, right?

If you want to dip your toes in the hardware world from the comfort of ubuntu at impulse buy prices, pis are great, but they stop making sense very quickly once you exit that specialized vertical.