Parts for repair are simply too expensive. I was forced to throw a perfectly good, and working, microwave oven away because the fan bushing was worn out. By the way, that oven was nearly 20 years old. Economics drives many decisions. Until manufacturers are required to make parts available at reasonable prices and products that must be serviceable, the growth rate in electronics junk will continue.
Consumers have no choice.
As in the past regarding solid waste and other environmental issues, Minnesota needs to show leadership. So, the repair shop, an offshoot of a computer retailer, rationalized that we wouldn't want to repair what we'd brought in when we could buy a new monitor for about the same cost. Two high-profile cases I recall include Dr. David Knighton with his wound healing product and Dr. John Najarian with his drug for organ transplant rejection, although there were a number of others. This clearly created a climate where any desire to derive profit by medical school faculty was suspect, even though those projects frequently brought in funding for med school research. Perhaps if we had not been so quick to damn the motives of these professors it would be easier to attract talent and offset the financial drain of reduced research funding.