I remember an office I worked in, back in a previous millennium, where there was an old (1980s) electronic device in a corner with stuff stuck over the power switch, tape holding the plug in its socket, the switch on the socket taped in the on position, & bits of paper stuck on the device & above the wall socket saying "DO NOT SWITCH OFF OR UNPLUG!", in large & unfriendly writing.
Its predecessor had failed to switch on again after it had been switched. There was no spare. They hadn't been made for years. And senior management seemed to find the idea of a minor obsolete device doing an essential job so puzzling that they didn't take seriously the frequent requests for money to replace it with something new, or buy software to install on devices we already owned so they could do what it did. Either of these would have been rather cheap, the sort of sum the directors might have spent on a good dinner. But it wasn't quite a small enough sum to be signed off by any of the people who understood the necessity.
There was no technical difficulty in replacing its function. I can't remember precisely what it was (some sort of specialised router?), except that hardware doing important stuff used it.