Comment by bux93

It's not just price. The market for this expertise is also not very deep and liquid. If I have to get a laptop repaired, what are my choices? Send it off to the manufacturer/importer if it's still under warranty, and get it back in maybe two months. Drop it off at a shop that does also phone repairs and hope they don't wreck it?

Realistically I don't know anyone with my specific kind of problem who's used their services before, so I don't really know their reputation. It's not like walking into a supermarket, or even getting a car repaired where you have some sense of the likelihood it will take as long as they say, cost as much as they say and actually succeed. There's much greater information asymmetry.

Of course, given how unattractive it is to get something repaired, more people will be inclined to just buy something new, resulting in less demand for repairs, resulting in less supply, less attractive repair market, etc.

Repairability (at home, by relative morons) also means more repair shops, because less repairability means death of a repairs market.