I have to disagree with the concept that gear now is so cheap that it's not worth the repair or obsolete by time it fails. Perhaps that's what the industry wants one to believe or that anything but factory repair/refurburbishment is illegitimate.
Exactly. The industry tells you a lot of things. And they tell it to us so frequently that we are forced to believe it. We are forced to believe that we NEED a new cellphone every year, that our cars are obsolete, that our laptop does not have x-feature, therefore it is irrelevant. But, likewise...we don't technically NEED any of these things in the first place (think cavemen). Sure, most new things are improvement on older things, but that doesn't mean that our older things are necessarily bad...but society doesn't understand that.
"My car is 5 years old, therefore it must be bad". If it is a well engineered device, it never becomes obsolete. Granted, all sorts of new codes and regulations might eventually make it obsolete. "If it aint broke, don't fix it!" My car is a 1993 Dodge Spirit. Sure, not the best looking cars of all time, but hey it still works. It doesn't leak, it gets like 27mpg, and it's actually pretty quick. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's bad.
The industry tell you "Your car sucks! Get a new one, or else! If you don't, you're a loser." Therefore we trade in that 5 year old for that brand new car not because we need it, but because we were told we need it. Same thing with electronics. No one need an iPhone 5, but Apple is going to tell you that you do. The main reason we probably don't get stuff repaired is that manufacturers plan the obsolescence of their device.
You can picture Steve Jobs saying at the iPhone 3G keynote "This is the most revolutionary device of all time. Look how amazing it is!"...and then 12 months later, at the iPhone 4 keynote "Oh so remember that iPhone 3G I was talking about before? Yeah, it sucks. But, we do have this shiny new iPhone 4 which is x-times faster, and x-times better. So yeah, toss that 3G out because only losers have that phone." Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.
I think I've stressed this point enough. It's not that we really have changed our attitudes on our own, but the industry has pretty much made up our minds for us. It's a no brainer. You HAVE to get the iPhone 5. (According to Apple).
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Gear is not cheap! Well, good gear that is. Prices I guess have come down, but it's all relative to what was available in that year. If 130nm technology was state of the art and you introduce a product with 90nm, well sure it's going to be more expensive. So sure, we have very powerful machines/computers these days, but we'll look back in 10 years and say, "Wow look how slow those were and how expensive those were". That's kind of a hard argument to make.
And people underestimate that a simple repair job can actually save a lot more money than they anticipate. But they take the easy way out and just get a new one. While they could take that monitor to a repair shop, there's that gleaming new one in the window so might as well get that one. The problem meanwhile could have been solved by replacing a capacitor or an inductor or you name it. Same thing with a car. You think you are saving money by buying a new car because it won't have any problems and won't need to be serviced, right? Well...wrong. How about insurance and then paying off all those loans, yadayadayada...society...