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@infovore
Design for repair is a surprisingly challenging topic, especially in the landscape of things resembling consumer electronics (eg head units, electronic shifters/mechs, etc). Designing for repair often pushes the cost of objects up, and companies are threading the needle of cost/repariability for the home mechanic or civilian/repairability for a service center. (Or, indeed, repairability for no-one.)
And it turns out people often like "paying less right now" than they like the idea of "buying a thing that can be repaired". Regardless of what they might say they prioritise.
Really obvious place you can see this is the consumer electronics industry's growing love of glue and adhesive. Why use expensive screws that need metal nuts/machined receptacles when you can just glue your phone together? Who's ever going to take it apart? Makes it thinner, too! Compare that to something like, say, the Framework laptop - lovely bit of engineering, repairable, upgradeable, and the trade-off is aesthetic and chunkiness that isn't exactly a blocker but isn't de rigeur.
(I hate glue.)
But with a bike... a bicycle, by default, literally is designed for repair. It's all (largely) on the outside! You can see how it works! (Even hydraulic calipers, no way am I going back to mechanicals). So the idea of chucking a composite pedal because it costs as much to repair as to replace... well, sure, only if you factor the environmental cost at zero. Which, sadly, enough people do to make it a thing.
I don't have an answer. But it's depressing, and doing something about it is better than not. A tool that costs as much as a new pedal, long term costs less than a new pedal.