This already happens. The most common AC repair needed is a new capacitor. It's a $20 part.
Call your dad's business, you probably get a quote for $100-ish and it's fixed in ten minutes.
Call a PE owned shop and they are likely to tell you that your entire system needs replaced. Quote $5-$8k.
Reports like this are already common place, and the roll-ups of former small-businesses in industry like HVAC that the PE people celebrate will only make this worse for customers.
The channel https://www.youtube.com/@WordofAdviceTV/videos has saved me a lot of money.
On a complete tangent on the topic of “home maintenance you should know”, hot water tanks should be purged yearly (to get rid of the debris collecting on the bottom), and have a sacrificial anode rod to stop corrosion and should be replaced every ~3 years (magnesium) or ~5 years (aluminum)
Note that this is only the case if you have been doing this already from when it was new. It isn't necessarily a great idea to try to purge on an older water tank since the valve can start to leak if you open it and it hasn't been used in a long time.