I go to the local repair cafe about every other month. Almost everything people bring would othersise be thrown out and replaced by a new item, not repaired by a professiinal repairman. The people "working" there do so because repairing is fun for them, they like the puzzles, and they mostly do it for ecological reasons.
I go with my son, who loves seeing what electronics look like on the inside and how they work. We always bring a large cake as a thank you.
You might like Rich Hickey's talks, especially "The value of values", "The language of the System", and the 2018 conj key note. The Talk in transducers also has a nice analogy: the conveyor belt.