That's simply because "make it easy to replace" has not been a design constraint in a very long time -- in fact, making things hard to replace or fix has been a design constraint that product management has enforced more or less explicitly in lots of places. "Miniaturisation" has been a reality of electronics design since at least the 1950s -- not being able to fix things is a more recent phenomenon.

Even if that weren't the case, IC manufacturing reliability has come a long enough way that, in fact, "everything on-chip" doesn't account for all that many broken units. Virtually all of the phones I've repaired in the last 10 years or so had broken volume buttons, cracked displays and so on. The phone I currently use had a blown battery management controller, which was trivial to replace.

"Everything is small now" is just one of the excuses that companies bring to the table. It is a legitimate reason in that, yes, the fact that everything is small amplifies the effect of the fact that, at best, making things easy to repair hasn't been a design goal. That doesn't mean the design can't be improved.

Edit: also, a lot of the high repair cost comes from constraints that derive directly from the fact that repairing things is all sorts of faux pas. E.g. replacement screens often have to be shipped, in small batches, halfway across the world, which isn't exactly easy or cheap if you're a small repair shop. If repairing things were easier and carried less of a stigma, replacement parts would be cheaper, repairing things would take less time and so on.

This isn't unique to technology either. Making a simple repair to most modern cars is an exercise in frustration even if you have all the necessary documentation.

I just recently replaced the headlight assemblies on my Toyota Tacoma. I had to disassemble the entire front of the truck to get them out. The grill, bumper cover, and wheel well liners all had to come off just to get the headlight assembly out. I had a bucket full of screws - many of them those garbage plastic ones - a garage full of parts, and a bloody hand by the time I even got to the meat of the project. It literally took me about four hours and 14 pages of directions start to finish.

Twenty years ago I did this same thing on a Dodge Spirit. Three easily reachable bolts and the headlights came right out. New one popped right in, and tighten three easily reachable bolts. Took like 15 minutes.

It seems like everything is becoming more complex and difficult to repair.

Just because a device is "dense" or heavily populated does not mean it cannot be repaired if done properly, if the schematic is provided (and accurate per revision) and you can still source the part it can be repaired. Even IC's can be removed it just takes different tools (i.e. solder pot, hot air pen, hot plate, etc).

I assure you there is no difference between troubleshooting old tech and newer stuff its just different. An IC is just that an "integrated circuit", meaning they just took what used to be an entire daughter board and made it on a silicon chip. I would actually argue that it could be easier in some cases to find an issue on newer stuff since if a chip is failed you just replace it (if you can get it, which is the real problem).

It's just like he said in the article use the datasheets if you don't have a schematic typically they are just using some circuit that someone designed 20 years ago and put in the datasheet as an example.

I understand the labor cost involved in fixing an item but I would argue the long term cost of replacement/improper disposal (even recycling...have you seen the little kids with the campfires of circuit boards in india/africa that are trying to reclaim the valuable metals...that is the cost I am talking about).

As an electronics tech I can tell you that I have worked on many complex circuits in the field and in production and I have never had a problem with the complexity...but I have had many issues with finding "one off" IC's and schematics.

Things are not always about money...sometimes its best to fix things just to fix them (and hopefully learn something at the same time).

Also, consumer electronics are built to fail. If they were not the manufacturers would require some IPC class, nobody wants quality though...they want cheap.

There is a vendor on eBay who does this, cannot recall his name.

But they will definitely desolder and replace any component wherever this is possible.

Honestly, I would be very tempted by appliances/cars that said "we've been using these parts for 20 years, and expect to do so forever so replacement parts won't be an issue". I believe some European car makers did that very thing.

Yes, it won't have certain definitions of "better", but repairability is a feature.

I think the fact that you have to manually add a component for connection by soldering, even if you can remove it later, makes that point somewhat moot.

Let's look at it from another point of view. The combination of needed skills is rare, and if you had to pay someone to do this, it would likely cost to fix it is more than the cost of a new device (since they would have to research how to fix and apply that knowledge. If there was an existing market you could easily tap it may be cheaper). If the cost to fix is more than the cost to replace, it's a brick.

It’s often a power supply that’s failed and those are quite easy to test and DIY replace if it’s the caps that have failed. I know a lot of people don’t even consider doing it, but for those few who are inclined to ask the question “could I fix this?” the answer is often “yes”.

The author seems to have arrived at the answer later in the article:

I assume these opaque parts codes were meant at least in part to make things a little harder for bootleggers. Sure, you can’t stop them, but you can slow them down.

Custom parts are difficult enough to RE, but a common trick was (and to some extent still is) to grind off the markings on common parts. Remember that this is in the 80s, where large databases of ICs, sortable by pinout, were basically nonexistent.

Ironically, with the degradation of search engines today, IC part numbers and markings have gotten far more difficult to find too, since there are now so many more companies making parts but search engines are barely indexing them. One wonders if that's a deliberate move from anti-right-to-repair advocates.

But they could be easily repaired.

I think OP has some sort of nostalgia that is not always well placed for old electronics.

That’s the neat thing! For most people, you don’t! Until it breaks and you need to fix it, and the manufacturer is out-of-business. But then you can present that strange schematic to your local electronics repairer who can fix it up with a few spare commodity components.

I think it’s just any old products are less intricate thus more repairable.

E.g. Nokia phones are more repairable than iPhones. Older laptops are more repairable/upgradable than say latest XPS or a MacBook where everything is soldered on. 195x Ford Mustang is more repairable than a new one full of electronics.

What individuals can do to repair a device isn't particularly relevant to this discussion. The legislation seeks to force manufacturers to make repair manuals available to independent repair shops. It's fairly common for such establishments to have the tools and expertise to replace soldered components.

Depends. I found my various Tektronix pieces quite easily repaired, with insights gained. But then again their documentation is quite good.

Depends on your soldering iron handiwork. If we're talking something large like a switch or a power socket it's usually pretty easy to replace it as it's still through-hole. Fixed some blown caps on an old LCD monitor earlier this year doing exactly that. It's not that hard if it's big.

We're not there yet. There are profitable businesses that can do repair and/or replacement of broken soldered IC chips in laptops and smartphones (see YouTube channels of Jessa Jones and Louis Rossmann). So cost of repair is not a barrier in many cases.

The problems they highlight, that should be very easy to fix through regulation, is lack of access to technical manuals, lack of access to diagnostic equipment and tech giants (like Apple) bullying their suppliers to prevent sale of replacement parts to independent repair shops.