this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2026
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That's more Arduino etc, raspis are a baby general purpose computer. You could use them as web servers, or to host bots, or as file servers, or as home automation controllers, or as network-level ad blockers, as proxies or VPNs, as SDRs, as game consoles for retro games, as weather stations, as security hardware (e.g. network scanning for open wifi), and so on
The problem with a respberry pi (especially at this price point) is that everything you can do with them you can do easier and better with the shitty old laptop you already have sitting in a drawer collecting dust.
Built-in UPS, already have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, (not as much of a problem now but) x86, storage
GPIO is all i can think of that disagree here
My personal favorite RPI feature is the Linux USB gadget mode on the RPI 0W. Very versatile.
You can have the pi act as USB network card and just ssh (or any other IP) into the pi via a single micro USB cable. I've also hosted a browser version of vscode like that before, so you get a text editor with terminal that let you work on the pi's system remotely/over USB.
You can make your own human interface devices like keyboards very easily. Of course you can just simulate key presses, no need for actual buttons.
You can have the pi pretend to be a storage device.
Have you been able to do this in a way that doesn't involve waiting 1-2 minutes for Linux to boot after plugging it in? That was the main thing stopping me from actually using it in my experiments.
I don't remember it being that bad
They just sort of played us for fools.
How is it better for children learning coding? It's only really useable if you already have all the electronics you would need for a child to learn to code. You need all the expensive periphery, you need a second computer to write SD cards.
How is it better for tinkerers than x86? An ecosystem where you have motherboards with interchangeable CPUs, RAM, daughter boards. Sure the GPIO is nice but generally I'm too worried about frying my 50€ board, I'd rather use a 5€ microcontroller for that stuff. Back when the first raspberry came out it was actually the cheapest way to get an easily programmable device with ethernet capabilities. But now I can get a nice esp32 board for 5€.
Self-hosting, I'd rather use a computer where my distro of choice works. Not a raspberry pi where mainline support is still a struggle after many years. And device trees are still more pain than I'm usually willing to deal with.
The unique selling point for me has been hands-on experience with Linux on ARM and it generally hasn't been a great experience.