Believe it or not, we live in the world of throwaway electronics. About 10 years ago I walked into a TV repair shop with a broken VCR and the guy wanted to charge me $40 just to look at it. I walked out and bought a new one from Best Buy. I was watching a Seinfeld episode when Kramer was talking about returning fruit. Seinfeld says "Fruit's a gamble, I know that walking into it" or something.
My ipod shuffle just died, and that reminds me I have to check if it's still under warranty. With my 1.5 year old panasonic TV, sometimes the sound doesn't work so I have to turn it on and off a few times. My razr died after about 1.5 years so I just am using my girlfriends old phone. The fan on my old video card died after a few months (the first one didn't work at all so I had to RMA it), so I just used a slot fan pushed up next to it for two years and just recently bought a new one.