My Chinese automatic lost time after the first year and wasn't worth repairing. My vintage seiko 5 recently had a service/repair - which cost £120 - and yes it works pretty well now, but they replaced the whole automatic innards - just the face/dial/hands and body/strap remain. And it still loses a couple of minutes a week. Unless I take it of for a few days and it stops completely.
I love it though and it makes me very happy to wear it - and it looks and feels great. But I wear a Xiaomi mi band on my other wrist for accurate timekeeping (when I need to be sure to make the train or something).
I still have an automatic mechanical watch, for what it's worth, and in theory it should last longer when maintained but will likely cost far more every year than one of my digital quartz watches would cost to replace even every few years.
Mechanical watches without factory defects should easily run 10 years without maintenance, but it's advisable to have them serviced every few years.
But yes, even with their longevity, it's a given that replacing a cheap quartz every few years would probably still be cheaper than a mechanical watch.
But 42 seconds a day is quite a lot. You could try to have it regulated (or do it yourself if you're feeling adventurous).