> What happens when such a niche manufacturer's hardware breaks down as a warranty case?

My System76 laptop came with a year of warranty I think, and I never used it. I think there were 2 and 3 year extensions available when purchasing, but I never buy the warranty for anything. However, 3 years after I purchased it I emailed support for a software question and got a great response from them and they spent a good amount of back-and-forth (emails) time helping me diagnose the issue and resolving it, even outside of the service window. That's just my experience, YMMV.