A little late to this thread, but I hope you don't mind me chiming in with some observations that I have made over my time in the skilled trades camp.
A long time ago, I started doing repair work for a construction company that ran a side machine shop. Now, most of the work we did there, was one off repairs for ourselves and other companies that could not get parts in time to keep operating. Now, my boss at the time, who is one of the reasons I went into the Navy, told me he saw a future where CNC would move on and replace a good portion of the people that were skilled with people who just feed machines or those who feed/program them. I can honestly say, I did see that come.
Now, let's move up a few years and you have people who are part of this throw away culture. Most things do not get repaired and most things just get tossed. Yes, I read above where the Right to Repair was a movement that might come to something other than just throwing things away, but in general, I do/did see less people repairing their things.
Then, a funny thing happened, COVID hit. It was like a door opened and things turned upside down. Over the last few years, I have been "scraping" by with using my hobby to support my hobby. I have been obviously buying tools to start my own hobby business over the last ten years, and honestly, just squeaking by with not bothering the wife too much with demands for funding for my habit, but something changed. I had machine shops contacting me, asking me if I had tool space to fit in a job. I had neighbors that were bringing friends over that had stuff they wanted fixed.
Do I think COVID caused it, maybe. Do I think this new mentality is here to stay, maybe? I do know that I think that this repair mentality will be here for a bit longer than expected due to inflation and people wanting to keep some stuff longer than they originally wanted to. I wish everyone the best of luck that does repair work and please contact me if I am in your area and I am stepping on your toes. I like to work with people, not against them.
P.S. My favorite repair job during COVID, last year, was this nice old lady posted up on Facebook that she was looking for someone to weld a little wire cooking basket back together. My wife saw it and read through the post where everyone said throw it out. She also read where the lady went on to say, that it was a family heirloom and she would like to keep it if possible. My wife saw that my name was mentioned in the post history as the guy to talk to for repairing old stuff and said I had to contact her. Long story short, I repaired it and met a nice old lady that I just couldn't charge.