I absolutely do enjoy repair cafes, they "pop-up" in my town sometimes using a borrowed facility and folks just show up with tools and/or stuff they want fixed.

I absolutely do enjoy repair cafes, they "pop-up" in my town sometimes using a borrowed facility and folks just show up with tools and/or stuff they want fixed. It is amazing, sometimes, how simple the repairs are. More often, however, repairs certainly are possible but parts, tools or information just isn't available during the very short time-span of the repair clinc. People end up getting turned away with a diagnosis of what's wrong but there's no practical way to repair it on the spot. I see these more as an affective exercise that shows people that, yes, it is possible to take stuff apart, figure out what's wrong and probably fix it. For these things to be practical, they would have to be more permanent or regular and take-on additional services such as a tool-library (like a regular library except you check out power-tools instead of books). But actually, if you look for it, there certainly is some serious repair-culture going on in SOME neighborhoods in the USA and in many other places in the world. Once you get away from big box stores, many independent hardware, appliance and electronics stores have people that regularly fix things. In the USA it might be frowned upon as ghetto or scammy (and sometimes they are), but many of you would be surprised what folks are able to do with basic equipment, a little knowledge, and some willpower.