
Ask HN: Is tech support becoming a bad long-term career choice? - wishiknew
So I&#x27;m looking for a job and I&#x27;ve had a new idea today. I live in a peripheral area and I have been doing maintenance on Windows machines for quite a while to make some side money. Ideally, I&#x27;d like to not leave the area I live in to get a job. So, what if despite having a developer diploma, I extended my activity to include tech support and marketed myself as &quot;the all-around IT tech guy&quot; from said area? This place is quite touristic and I speak English so I&#x27;m confident I could achieve such a position.<p>But then I thought to myself: with the desktop declining and being replaced by smartphones or tablets, isn&#x27;t tech support becoming a dying skill? What can you tweak on an iPad? Besides setting up email accounts – which people won&#x27;t be doing while on vacation here. The younger generations are more tech-savvy, too; the two-click &quot;repairs&quot; I could do in 2004 are not going to make me look like a &quot;genius&quot; anymore. So I&#x27;m thinking I should forget about this idea but perhaps somebody has something I haven&#x27;t thought of to add?
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petecooper
No.

I started in tech support in '98\. I worked my way from a trainee associate in
Sophos's UK support team to managing a department of 30 in 5 years. I left
Sophos in '06 to start my own business.

I am in a similar position to you in some respects. I started my own locally-
focussed business as the tech guy. I placed an ad in the local parish
newsletter for 25GBP (~40USD) for the year. That ad has paid for itself 400+
times over since then.

B2C support is tough. My demographic is adults, typically 40+. People are
sometimes reticent to ask for help, especially with cheap laptops. Be
approachable. Be a nice guy. Be professional. Be honest.

You'll learn about your area pretty quickly. I started out with an external
hard drive and a screwdriver set. It's 90% laptops and tablets, and the repair
side of my business is slow to catch on. The low purchase cost of laptops and
tablets makes people less ready to commit to fixing things, instead choosing
brand new. Sad, really. Apple device users tend to be more keen to get things
fixed up.

Poke around on /r/computertechs[1] and start thinking about a software
toolkit. Get a basic website and sign up with iFixit Pro[2]. Familiarise
yourself with their store; they do good parts at fair prices. My website[3]
isn't anything special (and isn't finished, either), but gives you an idea for
what works around where I live.

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/computertechs](http://www.reddit.com/r/computertechs)

[2] [https://www.ifixit.com/Pro](https://www.ifixit.com/Pro)

[3] [http://ex23.com](http://ex23.com)

~~~
wishiknew
Thanks for your feedback and some good links! Hope I get rejected by the
companies I'm in touch with so that I have a few months to get into this
freelance repair thing. I do feel like a freelancer and it sounds like I would
be much happier if I were able to become one.

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dpeck
I wouldn't bank so much on younger generations being more tech-savvy. They
might interact with it a lot, but they're also more used to it working as
expected.

I find younger people I interact with to be more comfortable with technology,
but on the whole more disinterested and frustrated with troubleshooting.
Getting paid by them might be another story, but you'll see plenty of < 25
year olds waiting for hours at the Apple store to get their phone restored.

~~~
throwaway1184
Good point. Furthermore, the devices that are becoming more and more popular
recently (tablets, phones, etc.) do a really good job of insulating you from
the nitty-gritty of your computer. Even if something DOES goes wrong, how are
you supposed to even start figuring out what it is? I have no idea how to pop
open the Terminal on my iPhone. I assume there's a UNIX way down there, but
how to see it...?

Related example: We've had electric lights for years and use them constantly,
but how many people actually understand electricity either? It's because
electricity, like the iPhone, is set up in a really "opaque" way to outsiders.
Not only are we used to it "just working", like the parent said, we have no
idea how we'd even BEGIN to address a problem if one came up. Go inside the
wall? Do something with wires? I don't know.

I'm really good at figuring out why my computer is broken, I program for a
living, but when my "smart phone" doesn't work right I'm helpless. So even if
there's a will, there sometimes doesn't seem to be a way.

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HeyLaughingBoy
_younger generations are more tech-savvy, too_

Then they aren't your target market, but perhaps older people are.

As the world gets more technologically advanced, the result is that fewer
people know what to do when their devices don't work. If anything, the number
of people who need your services might be increasing, not going away.

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JohnLen
Users are getting more tech savvy and usage for tech gadgets is growing but it
doesn't mean that using it you know how the machine works. Example, one might
have problem in getting to switch on the smartphone but might not know what is
the cause.

So, i believed tech support is still an important role. :)

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cmdrfred
I'm 25 and a sysadmin myself and I feel like a sometimes old timer, most of
the kids growing up today have never seen a command prompt, let alone ssh.
They are used to consumer devices that you plug in and they just work. Those
two click repairs are 80 percent of my day.

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PaulHoule
I see a lot of people making money fixing phones and tablets. Many (but not
all) mobile devices are easy to repair (enough that I don't mind it if I wear
out the left stick on my PS vita every eight months or so)

With less than $50 of tools you can be in business.

------
debacle
Younger generations are more text-adapted but they still have no idea how the
machines they use work.

~~~
wishiknew
You're right. Can't believe I already forgot I helped a 20-something girl get
rid of Windows software ads about a week ago.

