Electronics Repair Disappearing

The Detroit News has an article from Florida Today writer Billy Cox about the decline of electronics repair persons.
The article states that the number of repair shops listed in the Yellow Pages has dropped from 20,000 in 1992 to below 9,000 in 2002.
Ed Hight, a repair shop owner in Merritt Island, Fla., is quoted as saying, “I could get a job at (Kennedy) Space Center and make more money doing less work, with full benefits, which I can’t afford.
“It’s a disposable society, and the only way to stop it is to make it cost-prohibitive to toss something out the first time it breaks. But we won’t do that until the mountains of garbage are so high we can’t breathe.”
The article points out that repairing electronic devices can cost more than replacing them, and mentions the environmental impact of discarding electronic equipment.
The article is at www.detnews.com/2004/technology/0401/13/technology-33825.htm.