Additionally, every part of a corporation has to be a "profit center". Including the part that makes service manuals and service parts. Long ago, I worked at G

Additionally, every part of a corporation has to be a "profit center". Including the part that makes service manuals and service parts. Long ago, I worked at General Motors. Every part travelled through so many departments, divisions and corporations that nothing could be thrown away. Even radios that cost about $20 to make ended up costing the customer about $500 no matter how it got to the customer (in the dash? as a replacement? as an upgrade?). Even the spare parts ended up sometimes costing more than the item that they went into. The rule of thumb was that every time an item changed hands, it was marked up 30%. By the 90s, the rule of thumb was that if you didn't sell that item more than 5 times per year, it was not "worth" keeping the part in inventory. By the end of my time at GM, I ended up in a group that wrote repair manuals. We were constantly told that just to keep a part number in all of the computer systems and parts lists would cost the company $1500/year. That did not count the cost of keeping even 1 of those parts - just the part number. > Nobody pays a cobbler $150 to re-sole their $50 sneakers There are a few people who repair collectable sneakers. Those aren't $50 sneakers anymore, but more like $2k+ sneakers. WSJ article: https://archive.ph/9Dkjs https://archive.ph/9Dkjs