What do you mean, buy a new one?
For quite a number of years now, I've been doing tech support on the side. I advise on new hardware, upgrade software, fix computers and so forth. So, ever since I've been online, I've been hunting the internet for new hardware, and for drivers for old hardware. The new hardware is pretty easy. Every site out there has plenty of latest and greatest monitors and sound cards, video cards, and so forth. But what happens when I have a client that wants to upgrade his 486DX running Windows (with old cards and monitor) to Win98? Well, that can be a problem.
Off I trudge, on a virtual hunt through the internet for a driver (in very simple terms, a driver is a program that tells the software and hardware how to talk to each other). I do a search, and find the site of the company that made the card. No driver area, but I notice they have another site in Asia, and try that one. The Asian site does have a driver area, though it takes me 15 minutes to find it, as most of the site is in Chinese. That time, it was a video card - a 4 year old card. Ancient in computer terms, but still working fine. I did find an old Win95 driver for the card eventually (this was over a year after Win98 came out). Luckily the driver names were in English.
The latest time, it was an old monitor - on my system, which I used to replace an even older one that has quit working. Off I go looking for a driver. No driver. They don't support the monitor anymore. Their tech support tells me to buy a new monitor. Maybe I will, but it certainly won't be one of theirs! I've presently got it working, more or less, with a generic Windows driver.
One of the most important things people look for when buying a computer is support. I've been making a list of companies that offer good support for their old and new products. Those are the companies I recommend. If I can't find the support area easily, e-mail questions go unanswered, they have a toll number for phone questions, and/or things over 2 years old have no support, that company goes on my "don't buy it" list. I tell my clients not use them.
I've got a new and really unique suggestion for all the computer (and other machinery) companies out there. Do you really want to be different, do you truly want people to buy your wares? The try this -- instead of advertising your latest and greatest product on the main page, advertise your support. Make it easy to find drivers, specs, patches and parts. Drop that 1-900 number for your help line. As an "offline" trouble-shooter and subcontractor, I find that the first thing most people ask about a company is "how good is their support?" Show you care about the customers you already have. If you do that, you'll get more advertising than you need - from your own satisfied customers. And you'll make my job a lot easier too -- albeit a bit less lucrative.