Soon It'll be Autumn, Time to Repair Things
Where they don't charge an arm and a leg
We are now entering the final week of the month. Summer is ending. Monday is a Bank Holiday (last Monday of August) and we're still being harassed for writing about abuse.
One anecdote we have from this month is, some shops around here charge 30 pounds (about 40 US dollars) to replace a simple battery inside an ordinary watch, some said it'd cost 15, but in other countries one can get the same job done for 3 pounds, maybe less. Apparently in the black market it can cost just one pound and some shop once replaced the battery in my watch for free (goodwill). With the right tools, one can do this at home (with added risk).
This is where the industry stands.
They take advantage of people and price those services based on what people are willing to pay (they assess your faces, your clothes etc. rather than the wristwatch); they try to estimate your "value" rather than the value of the work to be done (it only takes a few minutes for a professional to do properly). What a ripoff industry. Same job, prices 10-20 times apart. And they say repair is still a thing; even battery change seems to have become a considerable expense. A few years ago I went to a local shop to ask how much it would cost to replace the battery on my 1990s G-Shock and they said it would cost a lot more than the watch was worth and even more than some new G-Shocks. It's a lot like trying to mend/fix shoes; they say it would be cheaper to buy new ones than to repair existing ones. Sweatshop economics. I ended up learning how to repair shoes; it's a valuable skill, even if rather time consuming (also need tools and materials, which take time to find and purchase).
Just something to be said about what happened to repairs in general. Do they still teach sewing in schools?
In the case of technology, the other day we covered this in relation to "foldable" gadgets. █
