Because Raspberry Pi is trying to IPO
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/stock/RPI/raspberry-pi-h...
A charity can't really trade in the same way a company can. For example a charity can't register for VAT (sales tax).
The way it normally works is that a charity exists which takes donations and does charitable stuff, then a seperate company exists which makes money and sells stuff (does trade) and it happens to be run by the same folks, and donate money to the charity (or have some kind of 75% of our profits get donated to charity) promise. That's super trivial to unwind as the charity often has no formal ownership over the trading company, it is really just a beneficiary.
On the grapevine, they had more money than they knew how to get rid of in accordance with their very narrow charitable objectives.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/21/captain-tom-...
Captain tom was just a badly run charity, they didn't trade.
But I think a charity should spend most of its income on charitable activities. According to its accounts the Foundation spends £12m on that out of a £213m income from trading, which seems very small.
The commercial subsidiary is a publicly-traded company and the Foundation (the charity) owns about 49% of it (last year it wasn't publicly traded and they owed ~98% of it iirc). The Foundation received £213m from "other trading activities" last year (which I interpret as income from their share of the commercial subsidiary) out of a total income of £220m. Out of this, the Foundation spent £12m on "charitable activities" and £195m on "raising funds"... [1]
[1] https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/ch...
However given the cost of RAM is quite cheap, sales are slower after the initial Pi5 rush and there are a number of competitors would it have been much better for the company to say
4GB is entry level for $50, 8GB for $65, 16GB for $95
Would they have sold more units? Improved the range of software that can run on a RPI, increasing demand further?
Anyone who knows what they're doing is capable of using a cheaper Allwinner or Rockchip SBC or flashing a supported Android TV to Linux because SBCs are for some reason pricier than the same SoC that comes with a plastic box and power brick.. or even (gasp) to run their blinky LED off a $3 Aliexpress ESP32 board.