I suspect the reason is quite obvious. They are losing money on every unit produced.
This is a "loss leader" strategy to get devs committed to the Broadcom platform only to find out "actually $5 computers don't exist, they are really $35".
Go to Mouser / DigiKey and put in the part number for the Broadcom chip, choose a very high number as quantity - look at that price.
Further contact a PCB and Assembly outfit and get a quote from them for a small board with a 100 or so SMD placements. You will see that $5 is complete fantasy.
RPI Foundation could've just marketed this as "cheap development platforms for you to try out your code, but only 1 per customer". Instead they've tried to maintain that this is some sort of "real product" that is commercially available at otherworldly low prices.
This is a "loss leader" strategy to get devs committed to the Broadcom platform only to find out "actually $5 computers don't exist, they are really $35".
Go to Mouser / DigiKey and put in the part number for the Broadcom chip, choose a very high number as quantity - look at that price.
Further contact a PCB and Assembly outfit and get a quote from them for a small board with a 100 or so SMD placements. You will see that $5 is complete fantasy.
RPI Foundation could've just marketed this as "cheap development platforms for you to try out your code, but only 1 per customer". Instead they've tried to maintain that this is some sort of "real product" that is commercially available at otherworldly low prices.