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.
It's not entirely their fault. The Raspberry Pi foundation has very close ties to Broadcom, who make all of their CPU SoC's. The original Pi was made with super cheap chips Broadcom was struggling to sell to anyone else. Either a batch of SoC's that didn't sell as well as expected, and later fabrication capacity reserved at a foundry that it later turned out wasn't needed.
The Pi foundation basically sucks up overproduction of chips from Broadcom, in return for low prices. But when there is a chip shortage and no overproduction, they don't get any.
Our trailer has a 'cloud gateway' that allows you to see/control it from the internet. The box that does that is a raspberry pi with a dedicated hat to power it, in a custom box. They want $450 for a new one when the Pi's SD card poops out.
Itβs been the situation for years, I drove 30 miles for a zero like 6 months after they were released. I bought an A because the B was sold out in 2014.
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...