I wanted to figure out a way to fix it. After all, it's not like I need the mechanism to work properly. I want it to stay all the way up, all the time. It doesn't need to move up and down to keep me happy. So what if I could just prop it up somehow? And that's when I realized, someone has probably thought of this already. And that's correct.
I think my search term was "office chair repair." If you search that, you'll see results for replacing and repairing the gas cylinder, but as I mentioned, that's more of a fix than I was looking for. But right there alongside that suggestion in the sponsored results, something caught my eye.
Sinking Office Chair? - chair-saver.com
Adwww.chair-saver.com/
Fix it quick without buying a new chair or replacing the cylinder!
It's kind of like bracelets for your chair. Big thick bracelets you can slip on. Exactly what I was looking for. Less than $23 total and it took me less than a minute to slip them on. They left a gap of less than half an inch, perfectly acceptable.
Always google it, somebody probably already made the thing you need.