Comment by Amezarak

> Whereas something like doing your own oil change requires a lot of preparation to get right

No, it doesn't. It's very simple on most cars, and certainly you could also see it with a YouTube video. Remove one (drain) bolt. Drain oil into a bucket. Put the bolt back. Fill the car up from the top with the oil listed on the cap in the amount listed on the owners manual. Take the bucket of oil to the nearest auto part's store and dump it there for free.

If you change the filter too, you just...unscrew the filter and screw a new one back on. Make sure you the whole filter came off (the gasket didn't separate) and smear a little oil on the new one.

There are some minor variations on this process depending on the exact model of car, but that's it. Variations might be stuff like "the drain bolt is normally covered with a plastic cover that requires a screwdriver" or "the manufacturer recommends you replace the washer on the bolt." (It doesn't actually matter.)

> and then you still have the issue of disposing of the oil.

I mentioned it above but because I see this comment a lot: your auto parts store or even Wal-Mart will take your used oil. Disposal is not an issue.