Time to make do and mend

In recent times, darned socks and patched elbows seemed to have become nothing but distant memories, relics from a long-gone era of thrift. As the consumer bubble continued to swell, everything on the retail smorgasbord from computers to shoes became disposable and upgradable, but certainly not repairable. Why fix something when it was far cheaper simply to turf it out and buy a new one?