I am a retired software engineer with 50+ years of programming experience (Fortran IV, 1965). I have acquired 4 Rpi systems. One is in use running my lawn sprinkler system, one is running the Rasplex client for my Plex Media Server, and two are sitting on my desk, connected via ssh to my Linux desktop system.

I was a software developer at Intel in 1974 when the 8080 microprocessor was introduced. It had 64kb of RAM, 1mhz clock, lived in a 40-pin DIP, and cost $540 each.

Without running the numbers, the RPi is about 50,000 times faster/bigger/cheaper than my good ol' 8080.