Is Break/Fix Hardware repair business at end of life?

callthatgirl said:
Usually I don't pick on members, only spammers, but he did come back to life here, so I apologize for my throwback comment.

This is giving 2013 tho
Click to expand...
Yep exactly. I joined along time ago and lef the forum coz of back then when I started out the forum regulars who spend all day boosting their ego and putting people down instead of being objective. Respect the recovery👊.


Back to question. I am in Australia and operating since 2010 here for this very question as break/fix tech and the industry has been in decline, LLM's (GPT) was the nail in the coffin. For me.
1. As the years went on the older business owners retired and the newer generations that came through were more tech savvy and managing more of their tech rather than full reliance, this would go for staff as well.
2. Computer parts become more reliable (parts shops started closing down like dominos).
3. Government forced people into their homes and laptop era emerged and desktop computers were pushed aside. This meant businesses now buying straight from local white goods / office stores instead of getting through IT company.
4. Paperwork went electronic so printers faults shrunk up.
5. Windows 10 was very self healing so windows faults dried up.
6. SaaS meant not software faults, licensing issues, upgrades etc.
7. Cloud storage meant local backup requirements dried up.
8. With laptops using WIFI and files being cloud based networks dried up and mostly only for CCTV.
9. LLM's are open on the 2nd window of just about every staff member now and can answer questions instantly hardly any need to open tickets for tech support.
10. Fibre optic internet. No more internet drop outs or speed issues.
11. WIFI improvements no need to get fixed.
12. Phone apps (matured and lots of people using instead of computers).

For me I the business was semi sustainable until Sept 2025 which was the end of school holidays here in Perth and business dropped off a cliff I thought it was just a economic blip which happens, but what I noticed was the media must have done huge marketing campaign and even though LLMs been on the market since 2022 it was the month that I saw them appearing on people browsers everywhere overnight. Business customers who I had relationships with since i started all disappeared I'd say I lost about 70%+ of my customer base. I have increased my marketing and now relying on new customers, but like the TV Repairman who didnt go out of business cos there was less TV's, income stability for the Computer Repairman's time has come too.
 
I retired 5 years ago because Covid pretty much put me out of business.
As you stated, people moved to different platforms and ways of doing things.
LLM's ruined it further.
Businesses dried up too, preferring large company's who offered MSP services at ridiculously low prices or went out of business themselves.
It sucked then and still stings that something was so profitable had to end.
 
smlie4 said:
Yep exactly. I joined along time ago and lef the forum coz of back then when I started out the forum regulars who spend all day boosting their ego and putting people down instead of being objective. Respect the recovery👊.


Back to question. I am in Australia and operating since 2010 here for this very question as break/fix tech and the industry has been in decline, LLM's (GPT) was the nail in the coffin. For me.
1. As the years went on the older business owners retired and the newer generations that came through were more tech savvy and managing more of their tech rather than full reliance, this would go for staff as well.
2. Computer parts become more reliable (parts shops started closing down like dominos).
3. Government forced people into their homes and laptop era emerged and desktop computers were pushed aside. This meant businesses now buying straight from local white goods / office stores instead of getting through IT company.
4. Paperwork went electronic so printers faults shrunk up.
5. Windows 10 was very self healing so windows faults dried up.
6. SaaS meant not software faults, licensing issues, upgrades etc.
7. Cloud storage meant local backup requirements dried up.
8. With laptops using WIFI and files being cloud based networks dried up and mostly only for CCTV.
9. LLM's are open on the 2nd window of just about every staff member now and can answer questions instantly hardly any need to open tickets for tech support.
10. Fibre optic internet. No more internet drop outs or speed issues.
11. WIFI improvements no need to get fixed.
12. Phone apps (matured and lots of people using instead of computers).

For me I the business was semi sustainable until Sept 2025 which was the end of school holidays here in Perth and business dropped off a cliff I thought it was just a economic blip which happens, but what I noticed was the media must have done huge marketing campaign and even though LLMs been on the market since 2022 it was the month that I saw them appearing on people browsers everywhere overnight. Business customers who I had relationships with since i started all disappeared I'd say I lost about 70%+ of my customer base. I have increased my marketing and now relying on new customers, but like the TV Repairman who didnt go out of business cos there was less TV's, income stability for the Computer Repairman's time has come too.
Click to expand...

Lots of good points made here. I've been saying for a while that for me once the whole boomer generation is out of the work force I don't know if I'll have enough business to make a living doing it. I have some decent gen x clients too but nowhere near enough to survive. Millenials it's very few and far between but majority of them aren't business owners in my area. The ones that are would be just very small outfits and they can probably do what they need from their el cheapo walmart laptop or iphone.

Repair is pretty much completely dead especially with prices being what they are now. It was already pretty dead but these prices now have essentially finished it off in my opinion. Good example is a Samsung nvme 990 series 2TB drive was $160 back in the end of 2023. Now it's like $630 on Amazon...that's a pretty hard sell lol.

Hard to say the future for sure. My 2025 was actually more revenue than my 2024. Raised prices a bit on a few things so that probably helped. The amount of jobs completed was nearly identical. So all in all with inflation just call it a wash lol.
 
@smlie4 I can't see the posts from before, so I'll respect the comeback, pretty brave of you actually as this forum is down to a few lingering ego boosters lol. Great list though of why our clients don't need us so much anymore.

I'm feeling I'm in my prime right now with the work I do. Outlook is still hot to repair and with New Outlook coming, plenty of migrations and configuration problems on the horizon. I'm putting myself through 365 admin training in the next year so I can add on more services. My clients are almost all do-it-yourself'ers with 365 admin.

I'll be 61 in 2029, so guessing with my retired business execs loving Outlook and needing tech help with email and related, and the business owners not knowing 365 admin, I'll be ok for a bit I believe. If business gets too slow for me, I'll find a local job here in town to kill time with and enjoy working with people in person.
 
I'll agree that break/fix is down to almost nothing. What still hangs on and what old customers pull me out of retirement for is Internet access. Bad storms in the Midwest brought a rash of calls from old customers who had working PCs but no Internet access and didn't know why. Not like you can bring your machine into a shop to fix Internet access in the home. The tech has to be on site. Admittedly, it would be a struggle to make a living on those calls.
 
Diggs said:
I'll agree that break/fix is down to almost nothing. What still hangs on and what old customers pull me out of retirement for is Internet access. Bad storms in the Midwest brought a rash of calls from old customers who had working PCs but no Internet access and didn't know why. Not like you can bring your machine into a shop to fix Internet access in the home. The tech has to be on site. Admittedly, it would be a struggle to make a living on those calls.
Click to expand...

In the boonies areas around where I'm at there's still some old crappy frontier copper lines on some roads and anytime we get a good rain or storm I almost always receive a few calls about the internet. I always tell them switch to anything but frontier until they run fiber lol. Then I usually just say they'll have to put a call into frontier and hope they show up...but honestly once the run dries up things work again but that could be a few days...thank goodness they are getting rid of most of the copper lines since they clearly quit caring about them years ago.

At least with starlink being available almost anywhere now no one has an excuse really as to no other providers available if they are willing to pay for decent internet.
 
callthatgirl said:
@smlie4 I can't see the posts from before, so I'll respect the comeback, pretty brave of you actually as this forum is down to a few lingering ego boosters lol. Great list though of why our clients don't need us so much anymore.

I'm feeling I'm in my prime right now with the work I do. Outlook is still hot to repair and with New Outlook coming, plenty of migrations and configuration problems on the horizon. I'm putting myself through 365 admin training in the next year so I can add on more services. My clients are almost all do-it-yourself'ers with 365 admin.

I'll be 61 in 2029, so guessing with my retired business execs loving Outlook and needing tech help with email and related, and the business owners not knowing 365 admin, I'll be ok for a bit I believe. If business gets too slow for me, I'll find a local job here in town to kill time with and enjoy working with people in person.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'd imagine you'll be good to go. I'll bet as those business executive guys start retiring they will become rusty and need your help more often lol. If they don't know how to utilize google and ai they will be calling more often lol.

I've got a few older clients that I swear on some things they could do themselves but they call me just because they like talking to me I think lol.

Also on outlook I've got a feeling there will just be new issues that crop up with new outlook as time goes on. It's a Microsoft product so it's bound to have something break that will need fixed lol.
 
@lan101 Yes, they do like calling us and talking to us, we answer the phone and speak english lol. I'm seeing all my clients from the past 19 years calling more often now more than ever. Even for a simple thing like calling GoDaddy, they dont't want to deal with it. I've been slowly learning that they are also my biggest newsletter readers, so that's important to continue doing. Many still have 365 business accounts as well, so doing hybrid of RBE (retired biz execs) and small business is 365 gold. Throw in some 365 home personal issues and you/we are Kings and Queens to these people.

I already scoped AI for what my future work is and frankly, it didn't scare me as much encourage me to do deeper 365 admin training. New Outlook is going to have snags galore, we are not free of troubleshooting it. It's only 1/3 of the way baked, the shell isn't even brown yet!
 
callthatgirl said:
@lan101 Yes, they do like calling us and talking to us, we answer the phone and speak english lol. I'm seeing all my clients from the past 19 years calling more often now more than ever. Even for a simple thing like calling GoDaddy, they dont't want to deal with it. I've been slowly learning that they are also my biggest newsletter readers, so that's important to continue doing. Many still have 365 business accounts as well, so doing hybrid of RBE (retired biz execs) and small business is 365 gold. Throw in some 365 home personal issues and you/we are Kings and Queens to these people.

I already scoped AI for what my future work is and frankly, it didn't scare me as much encourage me to do deeper 365 admin training. New Outlook is going to have snags galore, we are not free of troubleshooting it. It's only 1/3 of the way baked, the shell isn't even brown yet!
Click to expand...

Hopefully not too many of them made the mistake of mixing business email with their personal stuff...so many boomer generation folks did that not realizing the ramifications of it 25-30 years later. I guess if they have control of it...won't be a huge issue but if they retire and said company says ok bye bye email...it's a big headache of course.
 
No signs of slowing down in our market. I think that must have a lot to do with being in a more populated area. I think we may have fewer competitors than 10 years ago, so it could also be that we're staying busy because we were established so survived over the new startups in that period. Time will tell - until then, Full steam ahead!
 
HCHTech said:
No signs of slowing down in our market. I think that must have a lot to do with being in a more populated area. I think we may have fewer competitors than 10 years ago, so it could also be that we're staying busy because we were established so survived over the new startups in that period. Time will tell - until then, Full steam ahead!
Click to expand...
No signs of a slow down here either. I'm about as busy as I've ever been. I work alone and have 2 projects I'm working on and 4 more waiting.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

callthatgirl
New Outlook and Outlook 2016/2019
Replies
1
Views
952
callthatgirl
callthatgirl
britechguy
Automatic Repair Black Screen - what might cause this, and cause it to recur?
Replies
15
Views
671
Canadian Tech
Canadian Tech
callthatgirl
Is iCloud for Windows compatible with New Outlook
Replies
5
Views
1K
callthatgirl
callthatgirl
Steves_Computer_Repair_PA
Need advice
Replies
5
Views
3K
Kendrick
Kendrick
HCHTech
How do Cradlepoint 5G backup devices work? (Comcast Business installs)
Replies
16
Views
2K
HCHTech
HCHTech
Back
Top