Raspberry Pi is actively preventing enthusiasts from upgrading soldered memory to a larger configuration even when the replacement chip is technically compatible. The company says the restriction is intended to discourage unofficial high-capacity resales.
What’s the problem with a company doing what they want with hardware they purchased and own?
In concept nothing. But do you also recognize a legitimate business model of selling multiple products at different price points, spaced out more than the different cost of production?
And speaking hypothetically with some stupid numbers is it your argument that they should be able to purchase the $20 product, add $10 of parts, and either use it or sell it as the $200 product?
Yes of course, but if the spacing is too much then stuff like this starts to happen.
Yes, once I buy something it’s mine to do with as I want. Obviously warranty may be void in some cases, but otherwise I own it.
If the market exists that is willing to buy it as a $200 product then Raspberry Pi should sell them for that price, their costs would be much lower than someone who buys a Pi at retail, buys new RAM chips, spends the time to desolder and solder on the new RAM chips, market their ‘product’, and deal with shipping it. If the knockoff is $200 and the same-spec legitimate Pi with warranty is $200, the knockoff won’t be around for long.
agreed
Supply and demand aren’t a black and white thing, it’s a sliding scalre.
More likely the knockoff will be $180 and comes with a knockoff warranty- we make it for $40 incl. parts and labor and sell it for $180, so if it breaks we’ll just send you a new one and we’re still ahead financially.
What if the knockoff isn’t $180 but is $80? Under that condition who would buy the $200 one? If the thing sucks you could literally buy a spare and still be ahead.
But in this case they are buying new Pis and modifying them, so their costs have to be higher than the official ones. It’s just weird to me that there is any market for that at all.
Their cost is higher than the official one, but they can still undercut the official one and make money. That’s why it works.
Personally I’m not aware of anyone actually selling these, so this may be a made up issue. Or it might be a case where they were sold on aliexpress or something.
The fact that it is economically viable to resolder different chips, is already showing it’s a illegitimate business model, imo…
Not a product, but a money grab
So hypothetically.
Let’s say a raw memory chip, is $2 $4 and $10 for a 4gb, 8gb, and 16gb raw chip.
Let’s say the RPi Compute module are $50, $70, and $100 for the 4gb, 8gb and 16gb versions. From smallest to largest that’s a $50 price increase for a $8 cost increase.
Is that an ‘illegitimate’ business model? Honest question I’m curious where you’re at.