My visceral reaction to this was “well shit, RPi was supposed to be a non profit to lower the costs of computers, and now they’re going to be another boring computer company”, and that makes me sad. I know that Rapsberry Pi has been a dual for-profit and non-profit for quite awhile, so in theory nothing really changes, but it feels a bit weird.

However, it appears that unambiguously for-profit companies have managed to make affordable SBCs (e.g. Hardkernel, Nvidia), without having the same constraints of trying to save the world associated with it. Maybe Raspberry Pi IPOing will increase availability and funding?

Tough to say. I haven’t actually used a name-brand Raspberry Pi for awhile, and have opted for a competitor for the last several years.