That has been the situation ever since the worldwide chip shortage hit. Raspberry Pi (the company) decided to prioritize companies that use Raspberry Pi's in their products over consumers. So it became almost impossible to get a Raspberry Pi, unless you were willing to pay a huge markup to a scalper.

The situation should improve this year though.

> As a result, we can say with confidence that, after a lean first quarter, we expect supply to recover to pre-pandemic levels in the second quarter of 2023, and to be unlimited in the second half of the year.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/supply-chain-update-its-goo...