BIG DOG,
Yes, I grew up when there were a lot of corner gas stations with repair service (used to go thru the out back trash to find discarded red rubber tire tubes for our homemade sling shots). Plus, I worked in one when I was attending college. They didn't disappear they simply changed to a different form. As an example, in the little ol' town (county population of 60,000) I live in there are 4 "independent" automobile repair busnesses and two corner gas stations (woops they didn't disappear) that still do repairs within 3 miles of where I live - and they all see to be very busy & they are open on Saturdays. Yes, we have 3 factory auto dealerships in our li'll ol' Dogpatch type town with no Saturday service.
So there is room for both & there will always be both. The same holds true for lift trucks. The independepedent has to invest in training & equipment (the investment for one auto diagnostic system runs in the range of $8000 USD per hand set) as well. The biggest differnce in the auto indtry & lift truck is the population of vehicles and the variations of equipment - ICE, electric sit down, narrow aisle, order selectors, etc. Meanng, if the potentional is large engough someone will "back engineer" the diagnostic softwear & sell it to the independets with training. The lift truck industry is relatively small & the investment in R & D to develop software is too high for a comparatively small potentional. market.