Here are a few places that I've found pi's:

Rapid prototyping: I created a PoC to take a webcam snapshot every half hour and upload it to a server in an afternoon. Freelance project. Could it have been done with a microcontroller? Yes, but not in 4 hours.

Local digital displays in a gym: we built a system with a number of overhead 60" TVs, each with a pi on a VESA mount to show scheduling and workout information in a gym for a client.

HVAC controller: bid on a project where the customer's original concept was a Pi managing a rooftop HVAC system for large buildings. They outgrew the pi and wanted a new solution.

Data aggregator: collecting sensor information via BLE (bluetooth) and uploading to an internet server over Ethernet.

Remember that "cheap" to a consumer doesn't have the same definition for a business. To most profitable businesses, a $100 computer that fits on the back of a TV and consumes a fraction of its power is cheap. In fact, one of the reasons that Pi's were so hard to find for a while is that the Raspberry Pi foundation was prioritizing industrial/commercial customers over hobbyists.

For a hobbyist, they're quite nice for "I want to SSH into a thing, write my tools on Linux, and still have access to SPI / I2C / GPIO, USB, and whatever hats can plug into that." The Hat form factor, while not technically great and frequently overpriced, is also nice for distribution; both inside a team commercially and on the web as a hobbyist, it's a lot easier to share software and say "hey, buy this pi, this hat, and run this" than "fab this PCB / solder this bundle of nonsense to an ESP."

For a company, they're also nice for "I want to make an IoT device that's heavier weight than an ESP32 and/or I only want to hire Linux Application People and not Firmware People; what's the cheapest Linux module I can get that's widely supported, backed by a real company, and has regulatory approvals" - Pi Zero W. My understanding is this exact pattern is why it's harder to get them as a hobbyist.

I use them widely in automotive reverse engineering; ESP32 can and does work just as well or better for an end product, but for experiments it's really nice to have a self-contained appliance to SSH into and use SocketCAN on rather than some bespoke firmware project to manage and iterate on.

Given the price and availability issues I suspect the market is "correcting" a bit and companies are hiring Firmware People and switching to true MCUs in places they'd previously have avoided doing so, but it was definitely a thing for a long time.

I think I found a use case, but would love to be proven wrong with some faster / cheaper approach:

I've tired of buying S1 compatible sonos speakers on ebay, so I'd like to build a speaker enclosure with a WiFi device that has a high-quality DAC and the ability to use pipewire or similar to do real-time DSP and multi-room audio sync.

A RPI + third party hat should work well for this, or so I am told.

> I have bought an rpi at every generation. And I still have yet to find an actual use for them.

It's amazing how well these fit into the category of products that people feel compelled to buy, play around with, and then forget about.

Flipper Zero is another product that landed in the same space.

What's sad is that Raspberry Pi does have a lot of legitimate use cases and people who want to use them, but the supply has always been swamped by all of the demand.

I think at this point the brand reputation and software quality are a big selling point.

If you're trying to build a couple of units of some embedded thing where you need to toggle some GPIOs or serial devices in response to requests over the network, but don't have the expertise or resources to do it with a microcontroller, a Pi is a great option - you know you'll have software support, and you know that the vendor will be making the exact thing you bought for 5-10y.

For hobbyist stuff at home, I agree, though. A mini PC is probably better for homelab stuff, and an RP2350 or ESP32 is probably better for anything embedded or battery powered that you want to do.

My use cases:

* Replacement controller for my UFO Catcher - It has WiFi, easy to update, and I can operate the machine remotely with it. It's bolted to the back of small touchscreen that lets me change the machine settings as well.

* Remote printer access - I can monitor from the USB cameras and gather statistics about the prints.(I suspect a lot of 3D printing enthusiasts use them for this purpose.)

Having a small low power computer has been useful for me in those instances.

> I just don't see the actual market position for these things.

Isn't it mainly for learning and hobby-ism?

I have one running Klipper on a modded Ender3.. but I agree with the sentiment.

They also make OK Kodi/Libreelec boxes due to better documented video decode silicon (Intel still better at that).

Which mini PCs are available at the same price with ARM CPUs?

I would tend to agree unless you need those gpio pins. Then there are few other good options.

They have great software support and Google-ability, which also means LLMs understand how to work them. I use them in scenarios where I want both Linux and GPIO. Specifically, right now I have 4 Pi 5s running kiosk displays with RGB LEDs around the outside of each. The displays show a web page, requiring something powerful enough for modern Firefox, and the LEDs are synchronized to the state of the web pages. You could do this with a mini PC and a microcontroller, but it’s just way easier, and cheaper, to use a Pi.

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