Isn't that a feature not a bug? That means labor, a proxy for quality of life of the laborer, is more expensive than parts. That's abundance.

In fact, in "shithole countries" where everyone wants to emigrate from, it is exactly the opposite: i.e. you try to fix everything even if it takes sooo long.

Absolutely not when replacing costs 100% and repairing usually costs 0.1%.

And the reason people want to leave certain countries is for totally different reasons than not wanting to repair something. In fact, I would say with quite some certainty that emigrees who repaired first before leaving would still do it after emigrating.

The real reasons, in my opinion, are: 1) it takes skill and will to repair something yourself, 2) something new generally feels better than repaired/used, 3) logistics make replacing/repairing less cost efficient, 4) with every replace, companies have a new touchpoint to try to upsell their customers, 5) it takes less time to go to a shop and replace than repair, 6) it takes some giving a shit about the environment to prefer the more complicated route. And probably more.

This is actually a thought-provoking perspective! I have to admit you're right in your conclusions, though the issues are:

1. The waste is still a tremendous shame, both in the materials that will realistically never be recovered in 'recycling', and in the toxicity that results from a lot of that trash created.

2. Jobs in repairing lots of things were arguably pretty good jobs, and we've traded these for, best case, more complete drudgery retailing/supply chain jobs as we get a new laptop every year or two instead of 5 years. Arguably a bigger failing of our economic system, which doesn't seem capable of adapting to global trade, or this shift we're discussing here, nor AI, but still a bummer regardless of fault.

You can value not pumping out disposable garbage even if the (current) economic regime appears to encourage and reward it.

Temu boots don't feel like "abundance" to me compared to some nice tailored $400 boots that you take to the cobbler when there's an issue.

I think in abundant society people would be able to have nice things and the time to take care of them.

In this interpretation, repair requires more labor than recreating the entire product, and 'parts' somehow doesn't represent any labor.

Often it's not even labor.

Given the right guidance and difficulty level, I would enjoy fixing things in my washing machine.

this logic does not hold up if the reason that labor is more expensive than parts is that the labor involved in creating those parts has been outsourced to a "shithole country"

That means that the cost of (not) utilizing garbage is externalized

Horseshit. It means we're doing less with more and anyone with a brain should be able to figure out that's bad for Quality of Life on a long term. Wasting your resources is not how an economy grows strong.