Component level repair

William Donzelli wrote: I suspect that component-level repair will come back again, maybe ten to twenty years from now, as environmental issues of having to dispose of so much old equipment makes an impact. At some point we'll probably see manufacturers made to dispose of broken consumer equipment at their own cost (similar to what's going to happen for car manufacturers and end of life vehicles, at least in Europe). For a few years they'll probably carry on just absorbing the cost of disposal, but at some point it's likely going to be more cost-effective to design the products to be more field-repairable in the first place. Of course it could take another route and board/module/system swapping will be done in the field, with repairs then carried out at base before re-issue, but I certainly don't think manufacturers will be as inclined to build such wasteful systems in a couple of decades' time. Environmental issues aside, certain far-east countries will not want to take western junk forever, and I can't imagine the sources of all this junk being too keen to process it on their own soil. Sooner or later there will (thankfully) be pressure on manufacturers to make their products be more maintainable and last for longer. cheers J.