Indeed. I always figured that even if the cost to manufacture has gone down for any given piece of electronics that cost to society has actually gone up because instead of repairing things (which also provided jobs) they are now discarded far earlier than they would have been in the past.
Much earlier in my life I earned some money on the side repairing electronics and while it is of course still technically feasible the number of one-off components in any given device is so high and the documentation and repairability so low that it just isn't worth it. This was not a good development, but it seems we're stuck with it. The one big plus from all this integration is that devices consume far less power than they used to.
Much earlier in my life I earned some money on the side repairing electronics and while it is of course still technically feasible the number of one-off components in any given device is so high and the documentation and repairability so low that it just isn't worth it. This was not a good development, but it seems we're stuck with it. The one big plus from all this integration is that devices consume far less power than they used to.