Another of the reasons: Products are manufactured with lots of automation, and the workers have 3rd world wages. Products are repaired manually for 1st world wages.
I've noticed this in China where repairs are far more common, faster, and cheaper --- e.g. in the West the usual repair on laptops consists of swapping parts like motherboards, but over there you can walk into a repair shop and have component-level troubleshooting and replacement done by someone with a hot air gun/soldering iron while you wait and watch, for cheaper than the cost of a whole new assembly. Ditto for mobile phones. There's also far more recycling/reuse going on there too, which while it may be a bit unscrupulous, could be somewhat better for the environment.
Do not let them repair your phone out of sight though. They'll fix your problem but a new one will pop up next week because they've swapped some of the parts that weren't broken.
It was also still cheaper for us to get a new washer machine than have the old (landlord's even!) fixed. At least we don't have to worry about a dryer :)
