Sceptre U508CV-UMK 49-Inch Ultra Slim 4K Ultra UHD LED TV, Just Black 2017

It's less arbitrary than you might think. I've been half-heartedly shopping for a new TV in the past couple of days and it's amazing what you can get now. Here's a 49-inch 4K LED TV for $350: https://www.amazon.com/Sceptre-U508CV-UMK-49-Inch-Ultra-Mode...

Sure, it may not be exactly what people here would want, but it's not necessarily a bad TV, if we hypothesize someone who is choosing between repairing something 5 years old or buying a new one. With what the TV industry has done lately, it's almost certainly better than what they're replacing.

And at the very least, you're risking $200 for a repair. Labor may not cost that much out of the gate, but repair parts can get expensive fast simply because stocking obsolete panels for several years before someone finally buys one has a certain cost associated with it. Factor in the risk of expensive parts, factor in the risk that the repair won't actually work for one reason or another (misdiagnosis, the repair fixes one worn part but there's a dozen others ready to break), and it doesn't take much before replacing the TV is the better choice for the consumer.

That said, TVs are also the worst-case scenario, because TV prices have plunged lately in a way that even the computer industry would be a bit jealous of. It makes the case for repair pathologically poor. Many other things have much better cases to be made; appliances haven't plunged in price, and have large landfill footprints. Bicycles can last a long time if you care for them, and bicycle shops have the ability to repair most things quickly enough that they don't have to charge "by the hour" but can just charge flat fees for various tasks. etc.