Corollary

The cost and availability of a replacement part are inversely proportional to the price of the whole system: a $1500 device will fail because of the burnout of a 25¢ capacitor. But the 25¢ capacitor is either no longer manufactured, manufactured only by a company in Outer Mongolia with an 18-month backlog, or available only as part of a $1450 sub-assembly.

- Francis Assaf