I get Your point with the equipment quite well. I started cycling in a post-Soviet country in the 90s. Equipment prices were a major concern, so we reused what we could. My first trips were with paper maps in plastic folios...
These days, having a reasonable job / salary, it's a trade-off in which I have much more of a choice.
GPS / head unit is a mean to have the overall route visualized. Can You substitute by a printout of major cities / crossroad names as an itinerary? Sure. Been there, done that too. Is the GPS worth 200Eur for me? Yeah, it is, just by the time I save not having to fiddle with maps on every stop.
When it comes to palsy, there isn't one silver bullet to solve it all. It's much like any RSI in that respect. Body position, muscle conditioning, stretching, general ergonomics. The electric shifting is just one of them (definitely not the first on my list). But since the cost of getting it wrong is maybe a month of limited fine motor control of my hand(s)... I really don't regret spending an extra few hundred bucks.
Does that mean I have bulk discount at Rapha? Hell no.
That's what I mean by things being less binary than "cheap mechanical bikes" vs "expensive carbon / electrical / Rapha jerseys". I know that there are plenty of people who fit one or the other case, but there's also quite a few of us who are somewhere in between.
If You'd like, maybe try checking out "Path Less Pedaled" (a youtube channel). Clickbait : "What You will see may surprise You!" ;-)
I found that OSMAnd~ and BRouter was a good middle point for accessing detailed offline maps and getting route suggestions. At first I thought I might want to mount my phone on my handlebars, but I couldn't find a cheap holder so I just left it in a bag and pulled over every now and then to consult the map. Convenient, since that was usually a good time to have a drink of water too. Plus it saved battery, which was useful in remote areas where there was no electricity to recharge at the end of the day.
To be fair, I also work in the tech industry and could afford snazzier equipment, but I leaned toward keeping everything cheap and cheerful so I didn't worry too much about it getting stolen in town, or busted up when taking some questionable cross-country "shortcut". At the end I donated all my gear to a local co-op, then bought a new bike in the next country, so it also helped me feel more free and not bound to a pricey piece of hardware. I feel like spending money makes you need to spend more money - now you need a better lock, now you need a storage unit, now you need to take your bike on the plane etc. For me that's just more stress that would get in the way of my goal, which was to travel carefree.
I get your point about the utility of electronics, though. I'm not anti-tech, I guess I just tend toward cheaper and simpler solutions unless there is a very strong motivation. I don't think I'm especially unique in that sense - I think a lot of people (even those who own bicycles) would be surprised to hear that some cyclists nowadays are using electric shifters! I'm sure at some point the tech will trickle down to the mainstream, but in the context of this thread which was about someone thinking of retiring to become a bike mechanic but worried it'll just be like retiring to do the same tech job they just left... I think that future is still far enough off in the distance that it's not something people who are thinking about retirement at the moment need to worry about.
I’m so used to the idea of electronic shifting now that it no longer seems an outlandish idea.
Other oddities include bike radar (to warn about cars approaching at speed), electronic pedals (power, pedal stroke and cadence) and electrically heated socks and gloves.
All this stuff is useful and not that expensive if you ride regularly in all weather.
These days, having a reasonable job / salary, it's a trade-off in which I have much more of a choice.
GPS / head unit is a mean to have the overall route visualized. Can You substitute by a printout of major cities / crossroad names as an itinerary? Sure. Been there, done that too. Is the GPS worth 200Eur for me? Yeah, it is, just by the time I save not having to fiddle with maps on every stop.
When it comes to palsy, there isn't one silver bullet to solve it all. It's much like any RSI in that respect. Body position, muscle conditioning, stretching, general ergonomics. The electric shifting is just one of them (definitely not the first on my list). But since the cost of getting it wrong is maybe a month of limited fine motor control of my hand(s)... I really don't regret spending an extra few hundred bucks.
Does that mean I have bulk discount at Rapha? Hell no.
That's what I mean by things being less binary than "cheap mechanical bikes" vs "expensive carbon / electrical / Rapha jerseys". I know that there are plenty of people who fit one or the other case, but there's also quite a few of us who are somewhere in between.
If You'd like, maybe try checking out "Path Less Pedaled" (a youtube channel). Clickbait : "What You will see may surprise You!" ;-)