I think that when the dust settles RPi will have lost a lot.

Lots of alternatives available and superior for most specific use cases, which people are discovering and/or transitioning to because of RPi's availability issues. Once this happens it'll be difficult to win those people back.

Depends on how well those alternatives bank on the situation. I've always been disappointed by the lack of support and functionality on any non-Pi board I bought.

The problem here is, that an esp32 is not an alternative for a RPi,... it's a totally different kind of a device, that is only suitable in cases, where rpi was a clear overkill. This is like replacing a truck with a bicycle... if a bicycle was enough in the first place, there's no point in even using a truck for such a simple task.

The real alternatives are many other linux-based single-board computers (from <other fruit>Pis onwards)... sadly most of them come and go, and trying to find a recent OS image (with working binary blobs) for eve a 6 months old devices is proving to be hard.

Where the price of the truck is almost the same as the bike

> if a bicycle was enough in the first place, there's no point in even using a truck for such a simple task.

Right, but people still use the truck, because it's what they know, and maybe because they like the form factor. A lot of Pis are overkill for the projects they're used in. If those projects could start using this, freeing up Pis for projects that actually need them, that would be helpful.

I think form factor and reliability account for a lot... I've tried using other arm boards, and they just haven't been as reliable in terms of support/drivers/reliability as the RPis have been in general... With the inflated pricing, I've actually just jumped up to the tiny intel systems, since I'd usually be getting a separate enclosure and ssd anyway. I can see others going to esp32 if their original use was a bit overkill, if easier to work against.

The other fruit pis also have supply issues and the boards themselves can be quite buggy. Design your own with parts you can get in sufficient quantity seems to be the way, unfortunately.

That's understandable, but has nothing to do with what the poster was saying.