why is this a controversy though?

this type of bullshit is common across the repair industry but we expect computer techs to be scrupulous? the entire business model likely depends on scamming people.

with cars there’s at least an excuse to put up with it in most cases. it can be labor intensive and require real tools to replace a component like an alternator on many models. even a bold and confident novice is going to feel anxiety when a bolt won’t come off and think to themselves ‘this isn’t worth dealing with.’

but if you can’t figure out how to ‘wipe windows’ or replace a ram stick with the power of the internet at your disposal you deserve to be scammed. do you have a philips head from dollar general, a usb stick and did you play with legos as a child? then you can do 100% of computer repair work.

on top of that, the entire IT methodology is to run a few basic windows commands in the console like ‘sfc /scannow’ and then reinstall windows if it doesn’t work.