It's possible they see this as some sort of marketing, but I don't think they are using it to drive a sales funnel of low-volume customers.
The original goal (remember that?) was to make it a cheap educational Linux system. And it was a nice idea. The cheap sticker price got it noticed compared to the other more expensive (but better supported) ARM single-board computers. And here we are.
I sure as heck don't know what Broadcom's endgame is here either, because like you say they don't even answer your call if you're <100K EAU. So unlike other EVKs that can be used to rip apart and spin into real projects, you're stuck with RPi as a standalone unit.
The chip shortage is hurting everyone, but at least with other SoCs you can find them from multiple sources eventually. Or use a broker if you're desparate.
I was a big Beaglebone Black supporter, but figured the winds were blowing towards the Raspberry Pi, so just started using that instead. Now I'm here with the need for several mini Linux boxes and instead I have nothing. Beaglebone Black feels outdated. Raspberry Pi is unobtainium. Unfortunate where the random walk leads.
The hobbyist market has weirdly strong network effects: we saw this with Arduino, too, which was a lot more expensive than its competitors! I assume there is a measure of influencer marketing here that old-guard tech companies didn't grasp.
10 years ago, the beagleboard was a game changer, though. They are still making beaglebones and beagleboards, both of which are cool, but they are last-generation computers with lots of useful embedded SoC features, while the Pi is a computer first.
In my many argumen^H^H^Hdiscussions with RPi users here and elsewhere, the counter-argument for Pi has always been the community support is excellent. And, yes, it is. When you aren't large enough to get a TI or NXP FAE to answer your email then having a robust community is great. But it was built ground-up from all the RPi fans having the object in their hands and little else to do with it.
When TI dropped OMAP I left for Freescale, now NXP. I've been developing on i.MX for well over a decade now and have really enjoyed it. Their foothold in automotive has allowed them to keep growing the line and branching it out in different ways, more so than TI or Broadcom will.
The idea of "community support" is kind of interesting - it clearly had an effect here, but I'm not so sure how they got it. I guess the foundation just made it very easy for people to talk to each other about RPi projects, while TI put you on some forum in a dark corner of their website.
And I believe you're right about the community support. The RPi groups have been run by actual owners and enthusiasts, whereas the factory support forums in my experience have been minimally maintained with almost no interaction from anyone at the actual companies.
I didn't like the way TI exited the Android world; I'm glad the beagleboard lost. However, my ideal is for both TI and Broadcom to lose.
Which is why i soooo excited they bought VMWare.
Relying on Raspberry Pi as a business means relying on the goodwill of Broadcom - which is a severely broken company.