Comment Re:Dupe (Score 5, Insightful) 840
It all comes down to economic efficiency. Manufacturing costs have plummeted while labor costs have skyrocketed, so it's not a productive use of one's time to repair. Time is expensive, stuff is cheap.
Repair isn't the only skill that's suffered; we've forgotten how to farm, forgotten how to weave our own clothing, forgotten how to do many things that were required of a household a century or two ago. It's also why we get connected halfway around the world for customer service and don't get our fuel pumped and windshield washed by a whistling attendant.
Whether this is ultimately good or bad depends on your point of view, but unless we run short of raw materials, drive up costs via pollution taxes, or see an economic meltdown in the west it's not likely to change course. Rising wages in China and other industrial companies will only do so much before factories switch to robot labor.