1: I think people should be able to replace chips on an RPi as they desire, so I don't love that they're actively preventing this
2: As a buyer, I absolutely want to know if I'm buying an RPi that has had chips replaced
3: A shady seller changing the SKU to mimic a better board after changing chips is just flat out fraud.
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It's the classic "Mattress tag" case - it should be illegal to remove as a seller, and fine as the final customer.
But that's really hard to functionally enforce.
It's unfortunate, but given that there are so many ways you could end up with a poor quality knock-off (i.e. Amazon, sorry, 'third party marketplaces') it's probably something that skews the tradeoff quite significantly.
I guess there are more individuals who will be upset when they can't run something on their equipment as it was advertised to them than will be upset that they can't re-solder the RAM.
There are probably even fewer individuals who'll do due diligence in their own supply chain. Whilst those that suffer are technically suffering from some kind of crime / civil wrong - the chance of them getting a remedy for this is going to be non-existent.
You're framing this as if no reputable vendor is willing or able to source cheaper parts.
If they can get a better deal in more RAM, why can't they upgrade the boards? As a consumer, doesn't that benefit you as well?
> Which in this climate is highly probably faulty memory, (...)
That's specious reasoning and blatant fear-mongering. Consumer protection laws require vendors to support their products. If RAM is faulty, whether it was hand soldered by Eben Upton himself or hacked from a Soviet fridge, vendors are compelled to support customers. This means vendors ultimately have an interest in minimizing faulty equipment, because it hurts their bottom line.
So why can't people have the right to upgrade their hardware? I thought we already went through this battle in the 1980s.
Sure - if that vendor was proposing a solution, a modified EEPROM perhaps, then all is dandy. But they aren’t.
I wouldn't mind buying a 16GB board even though the official models at most ship with 8gb.
I'd even wouldn't mind buying the kit and taking a stab at resoldering it myself.
I mean, think about it. what is the whole point of a raspberry pi?
Even if you might not, why would your opinion prevent others from doing what they want with their hardware?
You can still solder your own 16GB and you can do your own support.
Maybe if the Rasp Pi was an unassembled kit "the whole point" would make sense.
You can do what ever you want with your hardware. Have fun. Other people don't have to support you.
Don't fall for it.