Raspberry Pi

Imagine my surprise when I set out today to make what used to be a commodity purchase: A Raspberry Pi 4. This is a device that used to cost about $50, and was available at Walmart, Amazon, Target, practically everywhere.

Today, I see that the only ones available at Amazon are around $160. Specialist suppliers like Adafruit and CanaKit are out of stock.

There was a minor uproar over the announcement by the Raspberry Pi Foundation that they were forced to raise their prices by $10 last October, but this situation seems to dwarf that.

It makes me wonder what particular parts they have been unable to source. I expect that every company in the world that uses chips has been scrambling to scrape up enough supply to get by, thanks to the global chip shortage.