It's sometimes uneconomical from a cost-ratio perspective, but it is crucial to making datacenter-grade equipment actually useable at home.

Tried to deal with the manufacturer, but they couldn’t help and sent me to the retailer.

Went to the store, popped it up on the counter, had a short conversation and got the expected “you have to deal with the manufacturer”.

Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Actually yes. Can you throw that out for me?

The confusion on the guy’s face was great.

Spent more than enough time on the $100 microwave. Their problem now.

it's not bad advice but it's worth noting that petroleum jelly is pretty thick compared to a machinists' oil or dry graphite.

CRTs were dangerous because they used extremely high voltages (often as high as 25 kV), and that voltage was often present on the CRT itself, which acted as a capacitor. The capacitance of the CRT was relatively low, but it still stored enough energy to be very hazardous. There's ways to safely discharge them, but you absolutely need to know what you're doing and work with one hand behind your back.

The voltages in a modern switching power supply are much lower (typically no more than ~1.5x line voltage ≈ 180V), and the capacitors usually have "bleeder" resistors which will discharge them to safe voltages within a few seconds. I'd still give one a few minutes before touching it - and maybe check one or two of the bigger capacitors with a multimeter - but it's still much less dangerous.