"Ray L. Volts" wrote in message news:beu4r9
Yep, the "toss it" mentality prevails today, and I suspect that will
continue to be the case, probably becoming an even more widespread mindset.
Oh, there will be that small percentage who will keep their old sets going,
but only if the repair cost is less than 60% of the cost of a brand new
gizmo with all the latest features. And even then, they're only likely to
have it serviced once during its useful lifetime.
Factor into the equation the enhanced reliability of the next generation
technologies and it doesn't seem to bode well for the repair biz in general.

Not to mention that as the technology matures, many companies based in
China will crank out ridiculously cheap, disposable TV's by the
thousands. Those sets will be cheap enough that if they die in 3-5
years, they will get replaced instead of repaired.

I just recently picked up a Tevion 27" pure flat tube TV for $199 at
Aldi's.
I can't imagine someone with a similar TV really wanting to pay to get
it repaired in 5-years.

Look at DVD players. Will anyone really pay to get a $39.99 Apex DVD
player repaired? I highly doubt it.

I would imagine factory authorized service centers will still have
lots of business though, as they are who people call when electronics
needs servicing under warranty. Even though the technology is more
reliable, there are still plenty of brand new TV's needing warranty
service. Even newer technologies like LCD will still need lots of
service as some people may return theirs for dead pixels and such.
I've bought 2 19" LCD flat panel monitors, and I had to return them 3
times to get ones without dead pixels.

Shawn