PC repair going the way of Appliance repair?

[Farnsworth]

Think about it.

Who in the hell gets their TV, toaster, kettle, or Stereo etc. repaired nowadays? No, you junk it and replace due to the ever lower costs of these items from China.

Anybody know of a appliance repair business that is still in business? Once upon a time they did very well indeed and there were serious qualifications involved as well.

Considering the ever lower prices of a fairly basic PC nowadays for the average Joe using a PC for web surfing and email etc., aren't we getting closer to the "junk it and replace it" scenario, if the repair cost goes over more than 50 -70% of the PC's value (doesn't take much now does it)?

Nowadays, that's about $250 / $350 for the box without peripherals for a half-decent PC and you get W7 as well! How much 10yrs ago for a decent PC? LOL.

$50 to $90 an hour repair costs (and I'm not talking commercial, but bread and butter home PC repairs)? Who are we kidding? As far as the future is concerned, nobody but ourselves.

I used to be a Professional Photographer (30yrs), but not now, as I'd starve to death. Digital cameras and "photoshop" has killed us, as now everybody is a photographer. Photojournalists (press photography) are dying too as everybody has a mobile with a camera in it and the biggest stories of the last few years feature photos from them, not from the Pros. My expensive film cameras now are just worthless doorstops.

I presented this same argument to a bunch of my Photography colleagues 5yrs. ago. and got hoot hooted out of the room. There not hooting now, I can assure you !

Hello PC repair Technicians?

 

[JosephLeo]

I doubt this is happening right now. In the future, yes, but now? No.

Look at it from this standpoint. Sure, there are tons of Sub-$500 computers out there that would have amazed us just a few short years ago. But what you have to think about is the convenience. Would the average person be willing and able to backup their photo's, music, videos, documents and software keys only to install them later onto a new computer of the same price that they know will break down just as fast as the last one? No.

Furthermore, there are tons of appliance repair stores (even vacuum repair stores) that are doing fantastic. In fact, I know that I have personally given one in my area $250 to repair my families $2,000 refrigerator (I'm living in my families summer house). Also, for our Christmas family reunion we've hired a professional photographer for the party (all families were required to buy something big for the party) and we gave him a solid $300 for 4 hours of photos, he's doing pretty good as far as I know.

Still, it's something to keep in mind but I'm getting ready for this anyway. I'm going to focus on business clients this year. They can not afford to just throw away their computers and live with all that down time.

 

[Farnsworth]

"Puppy Linux" (among other apps.) will (most times) extract all valuable data from a PC that won't even boot, simply and cheaply. Every other excuse except for commercial enterprises as I have already stated, for banging down the big bucks for PC repair is a load of crock. A simple nuke and pave at best. Any more than that for the average Joe, junk the PC and go new. I'm seeing it here in Oz a lot lately. Especially the chance to go from XP to W7.

Well I guess I'll talk to you again in a few years time when a good PC for that same average Joe is only a $100 or so. How much an hour are you going to charge then for a fix? LOL

 

[iisjman07]

I think that once everything becomes in the cloud, the machines we use are going to get less powerful and cheaper - basically I can see the google notebook becoming very popular

 

[Farnsworth]

Yes, cloud is on the close horizon. W8 is going that way and retrival of valuable data is going to be a thing of the past and meaningless for just about everybody because it will be there in cloud. Cloud at the moment has it problems, but the public and eventualy the business community is heading that way whether PC techs. like it or not.

So what left for us (PC techs) when OS systems play up? Nuke and pave and bugger all living wage, just like for the average Photographer nowadays. But hey, I'm 60yrs. old this month and managing, so I don't give a ...Fig I guess. (LOL)

 

[JosephLeo]

Yes, cloud is on the close horizon.

But who's going to manage "the cloud" when it goes on the fritz. It's still a system of computers and is no new concept. A paradigm shift is always on the horizon, but one thing will always remain true. There will always be jobs in the computing industry. We don't hear of too many vacuum tube computer technicians anymore now do we?

 

[ATTech]

As the industry changes, so do the workers. Do you think the appliance and TV repairmen just vanished? No, they started doing set-up/replacement/removal. The good ones were already doing that before the industry took a dive; you have to be a few steps ahead.

 

[vdub12]

The problem with the cloud is that this country has horrible broadband coverage. I don't see the industry dieing any time soon. I still fix computers that are 4 to 6 years old. If people are paying to fix those then why would they not pay to fix newer ones. The average Joe does not buy a new computer every time something new comes out. I do see cloud computing being in our lives but everyone will still want something better then an ipad in there home.

On the flip side businesses should always be diverse no mater how the future looks. I am personally getting in to data recovery. The investment is amazing and the knowledge is vast but I believe that it will pay off in the future.

 

[bytebuster]

Hell, I know of areas that still rely exclusively on dial up and/or satellite. And they're not THAT far out in the sticks either. I'm talking a mere 35 miles east of Carson City, Nevada. Go out in the desert a little ways and you're forced into dial up. Silver Springs has no internet service other than dial up and satellite, and it has 6,000 people. (That's big for Nevada, trust me!) Fallon, NV, pop. 30,000, only has high speed net in the city limits. Go out into the agricultural areas, and you're out of luck. Obama wasted the opportunity to spend billions on a REA for the net, preferring to hand the money to his cronies instead. Unless a broadband infrastructure can be constructed in this country "the cloud" will not go much farther than major cities. I think pigs will fly first, so there will still be plenty of work available, at least in rural areas. America is in terminal decline, so it's unlikely that we'll ever spend money on infrastructure ever again.

 

[Farnsworth]

There are some interesting observation here in all of the replies and various amounts of probable or possible true prediction too. Thanks for joining me in some idle speculation.

I didn't say the PC repair business is going to be dead any time soon, but it's heading for serious contraction I think, just like it has for many trade based workers over the years. There are still a few camera repair techs. around just like there are people still making and repairing shoes and watches and 100's of other skill based tradesmen that are still around in small numbers.

I know a lot of Photographers who invested heavily in digital gear to 'keep up with the trends', but there are only a very few (compared to 20yrs. ago) who still make a living from it. Their prices have come down a lot to stay competitive, but their costs keep go up and especially for travel.
There is a lot of Photographers driving cabs and doing other low paid work nowadays. Apart from fixing computers, I have a lawn mowing round (grass will always grow ..I think) and my wife has a good job, so food is always on the table and the bills get paid. I do feel lucky though that most of my working life is behind me and not ahead of me : )

For PC repair, sure there is always going to be room for skilled techs., but it's going to be a shrinking market and especially for home PC repair (my original point). An ever growing number of people already have cloud email and photo accounts of one sort or the other. The rest of people's personal data isn't far behind and sure, there is going to be problems with Cloud (Internet speeds will improve as demand does and fiber is being rolled out here into the country now) but hey, there is a big problem with the music quality of MP3 players too!

I never saw the Bic lighter coming and when it did I thought, who in the heck will ever buy them, or bottled water either for that matter?

The $100 new laptop is probably a lot closer than we think and who is going to bother getting one of those fixed and especially if the owners have everything in Cloud?

 

[joydivision]

I am already thinking about an exist. I think this business has three years max but after that I might carry on part time.

My choices are either

1) Go back to university and expand my software engineering skills so I can join the cloud and become a cloud engineer.

2) Do something completly different.

I am thinking of 2 more than anything.

Either way we won't be repairing PCs in ten years time. The hardware will cost £50 and you just login and all your data will be there. There will be no need for us.

I still do get my HIFI stuff fixed as it is cheaper than replacing it.

 

[AdamsAPlus]

The every lowering cost of PC, worry me a great deal. I have been wondering where the PC Repair jobs will be in a few years. I do not believe it is as early as 3 years. I serviced a Win98 computer the other day. I sell 5-7 year old computers at the flea market every weekend.

I live in between Nashville TN and Bowling Green Ky (30-35 min away from each). I service both areas. There are a ton of people that I service that has dial up. So many that I'm thinking on starting an internet cafe in the flea market. When was the last time you heard of one of them.

I have had several people pay me to come out and set up their computer's and wireless networks. Home networking has been easy since WinXP came out but most people do not know that you can share files in a home network. Most of them still back it up to a CD or USB Drive to move it from computer to computer.

There are a lot of services you can provide that go above and beyond just simple repair. And that is where this field will be going. (I Believe).

TV Repairmen are coming back. As more and more people are switching to the $2000 Flat Panel HD TVs that go bad after 5 years, people are needing these techs. As Technology grows in the computer field then the Techs need to grow.

I don't like change any more than the next guy. I'm looking to buy a Mac (Yea me with a Mac) so I can learn how to work on them and other iProducts. We all need to learn how to fix smart phones.

Talk about the Cloud. There are going to be a lot of people worried about the security of the Cloud. People know there is nothing on the web that is 100% secure. There are going to be the people that want to back up their data to an external drive or a central computer or something.

Technology is here to stay. As long as we are able to change with the world then we will always have a place in this world. We may not always be PC Techs. But we can always be Technology Techs.

 

[vdub12]

Hell, I know of areas that still rely exclusively on dial up and/or satellite. And they're not THAT far out in the sticks either. I'm talking a mere 35 miles east of Carson City, Nevada. Go out in the desert a little ways and you're forced into dial up. Silver Springs has no internet service other than dial up and satellite, and it has 6,000 people. (That's big for Nevada, trust me!) Fallon, NV, pop. 30,000, only has high speed net in the city limits. Go out into the agricultural areas, and you're out of luck. Obama wasted the opportunity to spend billions on a REA for the net, preferring to hand the money to his cronies instead. Unless a broadband infrastructure can be constructed in this country "the cloud" will not go much farther than major cities. I think pigs will fly first, so there will still be plenty of work available, at least in rural areas. America is in terminal decline, so it's unlikely that we'll ever spend money on infrastructure ever again.

I am in the sticks right now about an hour from you. I know exactly what your talking about. Many people here have Comcast and AT&T but its very broken up. I would say 30% to 50% of my clients are on Satellite.

The $100 new laptop is probably a lot closer than we think and who is going to bother getting one of those fixed and especially if the owners have everything in Cloud?

There will not be many people buying $100 notebooks once they notice the quality problem. Yes you can get a notebook for $400 today but there junk to. I still recommend customers to spend around $700 if they want a nice notebook.

 

[Farnsworth]

The $700 range quality notebook now will be the $350 quality range in 2 to 3yrs time, be twice as good and all will have solid state hard drives.

I still remember when a 4head video recorder was $2500 and a few weeks ago I picked up an as-new 6 head in original packaging for $2 at a local charity shop and those same shops will not even accept computers or TV's regardless of quality, as they can't give them away!

My prediction is $100 laptops won't be junk quality in $10yrs time. They will be better than any available laptop now, regardless of current price. Slow Internet speeds will be a thing of the past. Copper cable has reached the end of it's life cycle (10yrs ago) and anyone still on satellite will have a vastly improved performance.

Geez, I can still remember when calculators first came out and they were similar to ones that have been available in $2 shops for the last 5yrs. It cost the owner $200 back then. Technology is moving a heck of a lot faster now and prices are tumbling on everything and anything electronic for domestic use, especially computers. Partly due to market saturation and party to increasingly cheaper manufacturing techniques.

 

[vdub12]

The $700 range quality notebook now will be the $350 quality range in 2 to 3yrs time, be twice as good and all will have solid state hard drives.

I still remember when a 4head video recorder was $2500 and a few weeks ago I picked up an as-new 6 head in original packaging for $2 at a local charity shop and those same shops will not even accept computers or TV's regardless of quality, as they can't give them away!

My prediction is $100 laptops won't be junk quality in $10yrs time. They will be better than any available laptop now, regardless of current price. Slow Internet speeds will be a thing of the past. Copper cable has reached the end of it's life cycle (10yrs ago) and anyone still on satellite will have a vastly improved performance.

Geez, I can still remember when calculators first came out and they were similar to ones that have been available in $2 shops for the last 5yrs. It cost the owner $200 back then. Technology is moving a heck of a lot faster now and prices are tumbling on everything and anything electronic for domestic use, especially computers. Partly due to market saturation and party to increasingly cheaper manufacturing techniques.

This may be true but people will still pay to have there computers fixed. Its all about convenience. When you replace your computer its a lot of work. For people that do not know what they are doing its almost un-doable. For many of these people they will spend almost what the computer is worth to fix it.

 

[NeutronTech]

This may be true but people will still pay to have there computers fixed. Its all about convenience. When you replace your computer its a lot of work. For people that do not know what they are doing its almost un-doable. For many of these people they will spend almost what the computer is worth to fix it.

People do that now. I've had some desktop repairs cost over $200 on 3-5 year old machines. Copper cable still has a lot of untapped bandwidth. satellite still has leaps and bounds to go to overcome it's latency issues. Rural areas still have barely functioning phone networks, much less any cable networks. And wireless coverage is still incredibly horrible. I don't doubt things are changing, and changing fast, but I think your being overly optimistic about where we will be in the coming years. It's not that we can't technically do it, it's that the cost/profit ratio isn't where it needs to be. Of course, unless the government steps in and builds the infrastructure. But seriously, do we really need anymore government intrusion into the private sector?

Besides, it is a pain to transfer to a new computer. Cloud or not. Washers and dryers are cheap now, yet people spend a LOT of money to repair them. My buddy owns a large appliance repair company and he is hugely successful. Average job pays in excess of $300, almost all labor. Can they be replaced cheap enough? Sure, but it's just not worth the inconvenience. Hell, many people hate to get a new cell phone.

 

[gunslinger]

Think about it.

Who in the hell gets their TV, toaster, kettle, or Stereo etc. repaired nowadays? No, you junk it and replace due to the ever lower costs of these items from China.

Anybody know of a appliance repair business that is still in business? Once upon a time they did very well indeed and there were serious qualifications involved as well.

Considering the ever lower prices of a fairly basic PC nowadays for the average Joe using a PC for web surfing and email etc., aren't we getting closer to the "junk it and replace it" scenario, if the repair cost goes over more than 50 -70% of the PC's value (doesn't take much now does it)?

Nowadays, that's about $250 / $350 for the box without peripherals for a half-decent PC and you get W7 as well! How much 10yrs ago for a decent PC? LOL.

$50 to $90 an hour repair costs (and I'm not talking commercial, but bread and butter home PC repairs)? Who are we kidding? As far as the future is concerned, nobody but ourselves.

I used to be a Professional Photographer (30yrs), but not now, as I'd starve to death. Digital cameras and "photoshop" has killed us, as now everybody is a photographer. Photojournalists (press photography) are dying too as everybody has a mobile with a camera in it and the biggest stories of the last few years feature photos from them, not from the Pros. My expensive film cameras now are just worthless doorstops.

I presented this same argument to a bunch of my Photography colleagues 5yrs. ago. and got hoot hooted out of the room. There not hooting now, I can assure you !

Hello PC repair Technicians?

I could not agree more. I see it more and more every year. A few short years ago people would lay down $2,000 for a system and fully expect to keep it for 5-6 years. These days with throw away walmart computers running less than $400 more people than ever are seeing them as disposable items.


The counter argument is always "but what about their data? Wont they need us for getting their data back and setting up new systems?" The short answer is no they wont. Here is why: OSs of today are so dirt simple at walking people through things,(backing up data, networking, ect) That I'm seeing more and more people just do it themselves and pretty good jobs at that. How many people knew how to use flash drives and external hard drives for data backup 6-7 years ago? Not many. Those were the computer techs toys. These days its hard to find someone who does not own these things. I find myself going to customers places and them telling me they already backed up their data and tried malwarebytes!


As for the home user, most of what the average home user does these days is online and does not really depend on the machine itself. Think about it. Facebook, myspace, youtube, bittorrent. The system itself is almost a non-issue. What about gaming systems you ask? What about them? Most of these types build their own.


Oh, but there is a lot of work setting up a new computer right? NO. Show me any non-retarded 10 year old and I can show you someone who can set up a new system complete with printer and software and networked inside of a few hours. This is even more true with Macs.


So where is the money going to be in 10 years? Networking, Linux, Professional web design. It wont be in fixing the soon to be $200 boxes sold at Walmart and best buy. No one in their right mind is going to spend $100 getting one of those fixed and very few people would have critical data on them without having them backed up on a flash drive, in the cloud (google servers) or on a cheap external HDD.

 

[vdub12]

People do that now. I've had some desktop repairs cost over $200 on 3-5 year old machines. Copper cable still has a lot of untapped bandwidth. satellite still has leaps and bounds to go to overcome it's latency issues. Rural areas still have barely functioning phone networks, much less any cable networks. And wireless coverage is still incredibly horrible. I don't doubt things are changing, and changing fast, but I think your being overly optimistic about where we will be in the coming years. It's not that we can't technically do it, it's that the cost/profit ratio isn't where it needs to be. Of course, unless the government steps in and builds the infrastructure. But seriously, do we really need anymore government intrusion into the private sector?

Besides, it is a pain to transfer to a new computer. Cloud or not. Washers and dryers are cheap now, yet people spend a LOT of money to repair them. My buddy owns a large appliance repair company and he is hugely successful. Average job pays in excess of $300, almost all labor. Can they be replaced cheap enough? Sure, but it's just not worth the inconvenience. Hell, many people hate to get a new cell phone.

I have to agree. People will pay more then a computers worth to fix it. I see it all the time. I have a flat rate service of $130 to tune up a system. I have made a good name for myself because of how fast I can make an older system run. Some of these systems are not worth $100 but the customer is willing to pay $130 to tune it up.

I could not agree more. I see it more and more every year. A few short years ago people would lay down $2,000 for a system and fully expect to keep it for 5-6 years. These days with throw away walmart computers running less than $400 more people than ever are seeing them as disposable items.


The counter argument is always "but what about their data? Wont they need us for getting their data back and setting up new systems?" The short answer is no they wont. Here is why: OSs of today are so dirt simple at walking people through things,(backing up data, networking, ect) That I'm seeing more and more people just do it themselves and pretty good jobs at that. How many people knew how to use flash drives and external hard drives for data backup 6-7 years ago? Not many. Those were the computer techs toys. These days its hard to find someone who does not own these things. I find myself going to customers places and them telling me they already backed up their data and tried malwarebytes!


As for the home user, most of what the average home user does these days is online and does not really depend on the machine itself. Think about it. Facebook, myspace, youtube, bittorrent. The system itself is almost a non-issue. What about gaming systems you ask? What about them? Most of these types build their own.


Oh, but there is a lot of work setting up a new computer right? NO. Show me any non-retarded 10 year old and I can show you someone who can set up a new system complete with printer and software and networked inside of a few hours. This is even more true with Macs.


So where is the money going to be in 10 years? Networking, Linux, Professional web design. It wont be in fixing the soon to be $200 boxes sold at Walmart and best buy. No one in their right mind is going to spend $100 getting one of those fixed and very few people would have critical data on them without having them backed up on a flash drive, in the cloud (google servers) or on a cheap external HDD.

This is the whole problem, that $400 system at wallmart is junk. Talking about facebook, how many customers do you have playing farmville. The resources required to run flash in those games are crazy. My dad is a famvile addict and I just built him a quad core AMD with 6Gb of ram to make it run right. Before he had an AMD Athlon 2000+ with 2Gb of ram and a GF4 ti4200 running windows XP. For people that have troubleshooted farmville problems you know what I am talking about. I don't see the computer repair industry going any ware anytime soon.

Just think about how many times in history the death of the desktop has been talked about. Guess what, its still here.

 

[Farnsworth]

Internet speed certainly seems to be an issue in the US (as it is here in Oz).

"US internet 28th slowest in world"
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1077862/US-internet-28th-slowest-in-world

"Australia clocked in at 41st for download speeds and 69th for uploads".

The Government here has just recently bitten the bullet and started a muti-billion$ national roll-out of fiber optic cable. 98% of homes in Oz will be able to connect-up to high speed broadband. Also well under way here, is the hand out of a free laptop to every high school student.

For Business, Medical, Education and many other areas, high speed broadband is becoming increasingly vital world wide.

 

[Appleby]

This issue has been hashed out over and over on TechNibble and I've got to say that I totally agree with those that say we are going the way of the appliance repairman. It's so funny because right before I opened this thread, my wife told my our washing machine was messing up and it was going to have to be worked on or replaced. It's about 5 years old but looks and works great, up until the last few days. The very first thing I said was...."Remember last year when the thermostat went out and we called the repair guy? He said we were better off buying a new one instead of paying him for a $75/visit to get the part number off the thermostat and remove it, $150 for the part and $75 for him to come install it. I can call him, but we should probably just go buy a new one." And I don't even know what's wrong with the washer, but I immediately defaulted to buying a new one and my wife is looking through the Sunday sale ads now And the stove.......we went out and bought a brand spanking new Kenmore stove from Sears for $400 with a warranty, that is $100 more than fixing the 10 year old one would have cost.

My point in all that is, that is exactly what my customers are doing and it's what I'm advising them to do alot of times. Then with smartphones and tablets, it just gets worse.