More seriously, I want to know if any of the projects that come with this involve other hardware. The neatest thing about the Pi (or CHIP or whatever) over a cheap linux box is the in and out pins. Do they have any sensor projects, or even turning on LEDs or anything?
As for the markup: yes it’s totally marked up, but would the author have bought all the parts separately for his kids on Adafruit or wherever? It sounds like definitely not. So it’s a win for the kids, because they get to use this instead of not using this. You’re paying for the soothing packaging (cf. second, it has the words “DON’T PANIC” inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.) and peace of mind that it will all work together and that you have a nice booklet of projects you can star working on immediately. If the complaints are that the markup is so high that someone should undercut them, then go right ahead and undercut them.
