The original Raspberry Pi was awesome because it ran cool. You could just set it up and forget about it, literally for decades. But now they require fans, they're just like any other computer. They've added a definite point of failure, given enough time. Well done, chaps.

Moronic. Fans can run for centuries without maintenance, and a Pi won't need much cooling to begin with, so a high RPM isn't needed. Cooling required is also dependent on use case as well.

It depends which version you buy. The nano does need a fan.

They're very powerful for what they are but they're also reasonably pricey these days I think it's a combination of multiple things that make me less interested in them now Fans are a small part of the wider picture

I can't recall a single fan failure. I've had plenty of board failures though.

The vast majority of my RasPis run with no fans. The only exceptions are the ones with POE Hats that need fans for the POE chips. Worst case without a fan is it self throttles its speed so that it doesn't overheat.