Comment by ajsnigrutin

> They are great for hobbyists due to their low barrier to entry, but there really isn't a niche they serve when it comes to mass-produced electronics.

This.

Just programming a microcontroller is generally a pain, but a pain that hardware manufacturers can deal with, because they have employees with experience, who can read the long datasheets, get proper programmers and run the manufacturers software packages to program everything.

For hobbyists, you're basically limited to arduinos, esp??/??, and rpi picos, only those are guaranteed to have a lot of software support, documentation, easy availability on aliexpress etc. for cheap, and can be made to actually do some stuff in an afternoon of tinkering.

(technically it's the same with proper RPis, where they're the only SBC board (not x86 baed) that you're guaranteed will have at least some software support after 5+ years).