we've lost the plot. this is no longer a hobbyist computer.
You're correct; they've jumped the shark.
1) Apple had long term contracts for memory which will run out. Afterwards it will be very interesting to see what they do.
2) RPi uses older memory that is much much more expensive to buy in the market as manufacturers have dedicated capacity to newer formats used by AI boxes for KV caches
This is just very expensive for what it is.
Same thing happening for servers, gaming PC's, cell phones, so on.
What market is this trying to compete in?
The Pi 1 model B+ was released in 2014. They still make and support it today and will keep doing it until at least 2030. You can just buy that instead. They are not apple.
As for the education market, that's a long forgotten pipedream.
Kicking myself for not buying the Q6A at the beginning of the year (I wanted three and arace would only sell one per customer, but one would've been better than none).