I had my fridge repaired this summer. A repair person come with his car and tools at my home, spent 2 hours to find and fix the fridge and I think it costed me less then 20% of the fridge full price. It is a real waste to throw a good fridge engine because the doors is not closing properly or a pipe is leaking some gas.

I live in Romania so this might not apply to other places so your experience is localized not global, and with an expensive enough product (like a super expensive TV or laptop) I bet most people would want it fixed and spent the money on some other gadget.