Actually the majority of hams have started with the Raspberry Pi? of various revisions; then when the need arose or the desire to have a PI?W or even a PI?W2 it was procured as needed.
The Supply chain latest shows a few RPI3A+'s available off shore. Which in all probability may be highly improbable. As actually obtaining what you paid for is beyond risky.
Today there are responses from just that issue of RPI unobtainium problems discussed at the? ham-pi forum on groups.io. The point is a op-ed by the founder of Raspberrypi.org on raspberrypi,com by a Mr. Upton who claims current production is 1/2 million per month and they have prioritized distribution to large volume commercial users, because " they have families they need to feed"
That is not the intent of the non-profit that was formed to provide affordable computer equipment to 3rd world, hobbiests and educators.
Secret hint- RPIs by the thousands are in use crypto mining. how many, who knows.
1060 Raspberry Pi's in a? computer cluster...
Larry W8LM
Larry Macionski