• exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 hours ago

    Back in the day you called a repairman.

    That guy’s time is worth probably $30/hour, so if you want to use up his 8 hour day you’d better be willing to pay $240, plus parts, plus the gas money of driving his truck to your home, plus the cost of keeping those parts on hand and the truck available.

    Or if it’s something he knows is only a half day job, then he can book something else so that he only really needs to charge you $120.

    Now that a lot of these appliances are like $500, it’s pretty hard to justify the cost of professional repair.

    50 years ago, when the price of an appliance was something like 50 hours of a repairman’s hourly wage, it made a lot of sense for most issues to be fixed by a professional. Now that these appliances are worth like 15-20 worker hours, it’s much harder to justify.

    • Bratosch@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      They only cost 15-20h of work because they’re built like a pile of leafs in the wind. Look at it wrong and it’ll break.