Roles may change, but there will always be a need for a tech. Yes, reliability etc has improved but things still fail.

Extended warranties are a rip-off, thats why they are being seriously looked at by regulators.

My personal view is that the predicted demise of techs is like the paperless office we were all promised years ago. We use more paper than ever before.

Think about it for a moment. How many of us keep hard copies of e-mails? How many of us have hard copies of documents which are readily avilable on our PC's? Be honest!