Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber recently discussed the possibility of one day selling a mouse that customers can use “forever.” The executive said such a mouse isn’t “necessarily super far away” and will rely on software updates, likely delivered through a subscription model.
Speaking on a July 29 episode of The Verge’s Decoder podcast, Faber, who Logitech appointed as CEO in October, said that members of a “Logitech innovation center” showed her “a forever mouse” and compared it to a nice but not “super expensive” watch. She said:
I’m not planning to throw that watch away ever. So why would I be throwing my mouse or my keyboard away if it’s a fantastic-quality, well-designed, software-enabled mouse? The forever mouse is one of the things that we’d like to get to.
Having to pay a regular fee for full use of a peripheral could deter customers, though. HP is trying a similar idea with rentable printers that require a monthly fee. The printers differ from the idea of the forever mouse in that the HP hardware belongs to HP, not the user. However, concerns around tracking and the addition of ongoing expenses are similar.>>>>
[click click, click click click click] Hmm, why’s it not… Honey, did we pay the mouse bill this month?
She can fuck right off with that. I have a mouse that fell apart because it used soft plastic, another one I threw away because I couldn’t clean properly (taking it apart to clean broke something), and now I have one from logitech. My parents have a mouse from (I kid you not) 1995. Brand is unknown. There were already “forever” mice out there, it’s just that now they voluntarily make them shit for you to buy a new one.
Just make mice like 20 years ago but in different forms (vertical, ball at the thumb), that can be opened to clean and repair, and we’re fine. No need for your dumb-ass subscription. Fuck off.
What? Nooo. I don’t want the stupid mouse-balls ever again. Sure i could clean it but i also HAD to. Regularly.
Besides, you’re right. Fuck subscriptions. Fuck logitech, fuck their shitty quality.
They’re talking about a Trackball mouse e.g., not the pre laser mice (or they’re nuts). Good ergonomics, useful for carpal tunnel etc.
FWIW I’ve found their high-end mice pretty robust, my MX Master 2 is still going strong 5+ years in, if cosmetically challenged. Amortised over time, the price is not so bad.
Oooh right trackball-mice. Totally forgot they exist 😁 Ok the mice are ok. For the price. Nothing is like it was before. But their keyboards… Some months later the markings already peel off, cables break very quickly.
I find anything with that coated plastic over time gets crappy. I still have an old X52 pro I’ve had for probably around 15 years now. In the end I just completely took off the flaking rubber style coating they put over it and it’s now shiny plastic and still going strong.
I also have a G502 that’s 6 years old. It has some worn areas where it’s actively held and on the buttons. I replaced the skates last year and have a spare set. Otherwise, still going strong.
Really not sure why I’d subscribe for something that lasts so long and isn’t THAT expensive to replace.
Oh hell no to subscribing, thought didn’t cross my mind. Save us from MBAs with revenue streams on their mind, wannabe rentiers.
i mean they literally admit to it in the article… they need to find the “business model” to support it, which could mean a subscription and an expensive price tag… the reason isn’t because it needs ongoing support - it’s because of planned obsolescence
boo hoo we can’t make money off selling you shit every few years so we have to charge you $200 and a subscription
Vegas odds that’s a Genius mouse
Weird analogy, you don’t to pay a subscription for your nice watch to keep the right time
Yet!
If it’s a nice watch you’re setting it almost every time you use it
Hell, mine needs wound up every time.
Haha same
Ssssshhhh, for god’s sake don’t give them any ideas.
They already did that when Logitech was still a quality company back in the day. Their peripherals turned into Trust level shit ages ago.
I’m not planning to throw that watch away ever. So why would I be throwing my mouse or my keyboard away if it’s a fantastic-quality, well-designed, software-enabled mouse?
Because watch technology is mature and isn’t changing. Nobody’s making a better watch every few years.
That generally isn’t true of computer hardware.
In the 1980s, you had maybe a one or two button mouse with mechanical optical encoder rings turned by a ball that gummed up and would stick.
After that:
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A third mouse button showed up
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A scrollwheel showed up
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Optical sensors showed up.
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Better optical sensors showed up, with the ability to function on arbitrary surfaces and dejittering.
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Polling rate improved
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Mice got the ability to go to sleep if not being used.
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More buttons showed up, with mice often having five or more buttons.
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Tilt scrollwheels showed up
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Wireless mice showed up
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Better wireless protocols showed up
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Optical sensor resolutions drastically increased
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Weight decreased
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Foot pads used less-friction-inducing material.
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Several updates happened to track changing ports (on PC, serial, PS/2, USB-A, and probably soon USB-C).
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The transparent mouse bodies that were initially-used on many optical mice (to show off the LED and that they were optical) went away as companies figured out that people did not want to have flashing red mice. (I was particularly annoyed by this, modded a trackball that used a translucent ball to use a near-infrared LED back in the day).
If wristwatches had improved like that over the past 40 years, you likely wouldn’t be keeping an older one either.
If you think that there isn’t going to be any more change in mice, okay, maybe you can try selling people on the same mouse for a long time. I’m skeptical.
Most of those changes to mice make very little difference to regular users. And the low-priced mice most people use aren’t so different from the old ones. Wireless is a mixed blessing because it comes with having to recharge a battery which is often not replaceable. Polling rate and DPI is only of interest to niche users. Most people probably never tilt the wheel. So for many an old wired mouse will still do fine.
Anyway, Logitech’s “forever mouse”, if it’s really forever, doesn’t really fit with the idea that mouse technology evolves enough that you need to replace the mouse every few years. That said, it’s probably the subscription that’s forever, not the mouse.
In watches, smart watches are new and still developing, and some of them already have “premium” subscription services.
- A third mouse button showed up
- A scrollwheel showed up
- Optical sensors showed up.
- Better optical sensors showed up
- Polling rate improved
… and then everybody joined me in thinking that this would be a good place to stop and actively avoided the continued attempts to sell us on new features that further complicate things.
I don’t personally go down the wireless mouse route – in fact, in general, I’d rather not use wireless and especially Bluetooth devices, due to reliability, latency, security, needing-to-worry-about-battery-charge, and privacy (due to broadcasting a unique ID that any nearby cell phone will relay the position of to Google, Apple, or similar). But I’d say that aside from that, most of those are advantageous, and a lot of people out there don’t care (or don’t know about) wireless drawbacks, so for them, even those are a win.
The main complexity item I can think of is the buttons. Maybe back in the day, few set up Mouse Button #5 to be “drag window” in their window manager, as I did, so I could drag windows anywhere rather than on their titlebar. However, the browser “back” and “forward” functionality that I believe is the default in all desktop environments these days seems pretty easily-approachable.
Yeah it is mostly the extra buttons that annoy me personally, I don’t really know why. I have better ways of doing the things you mention but I’m sure there could theoretically be some use for them. I’ve played games where they might’ve been useful, but it seems like no software is designed to rely on them and I always found their placement made it too easy to hit them by accident. Maybe my hands are the wrong shape or something.
I haven’t hit that, but one thing that might help if you don’t like that – you might be able to set it up such that they only operate in your environment when chorded – like, when you hit multiple buttons at the same time. Like, only have “left click plus back” send “back” and “left click plus forward” send “forward”, or something akin to that.
These days, I use sway on Linux, which provides for a tiled desktop environment – the computer sets the size of windows, which are mostly fullscreen, and I don’t drag windows. But when I did, and before mice had the convention of using “back” and “forward” on Button 4 and Button 5, I really liked having the single-button-to-drag-anywhere functionality, though I never really found a use for the fifth button. If I were still using a non-tiled environment, I’d probably look into doing chording or something so that I could still do my “drag anywhere on the window” thing.
I’m an Xfce user, in the habit of dragging windows around with the “super” key + left mouse button.
For instant access to the browser back button, I have it positioned in the far top-left corner so that just swiping the mouse in that direction hits it without having to look at it. Unless it’s on the other monitor, which is mildly annoying when it happens but you know, probably not by enough to change my decades-old habit of buying the cheapest and simplest mouse that’s easily available and looks like it might not fall apart in a week, much the same way as I tend to shop for socks: reluctantly, when it’s necessary.
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They can’t even make a mouse that doesn’t double click after a year. Dumbass.
Seriously, fuck all these “subscription” ideas.
Why in the ever-loving fuck would I want to pay a subscription for a goddam computer mouse? Some techbro fuckwit is probably chest-bumping his own reflection in the mirror for coming up with this dumb idea.
Here’s a novel idea to help you keep revenue going the right direction: try innovating something truly useful and new, rather than selling the same, regurgitated Hotel California bullshit to hapless users.
Yeah it’s a horrible idea in all the usual ways, but hear me out. What if Logitech figures out a way to provide actual value to the customer? What if you get a new mouse every year if you send the old one back? That way, you would be paying a subscription for always having the latest mouse. Probably not something I would do, but someone who has more money might appreciate a service like that.
Well the mice would be ergonomically different so they would all need getting used to, and you know the waste of shipping and throwing away a perfectly good mouse every year to get a new one.
If I made a service like that, I would require the customer to send the old one back every year. Then the company could sell the refurbished mice instead of throwing them away.
Not sure if /s or not, but I’ll bite. That’s the opposite of what they’ve stated in the article. This would be a mouse that you buy and use forever, no physical upgrades, just software. There is no value for the customer, only the shareholders.
Not a surprise. That’s how subscription companies operate these days. Basically like the heated seats BMW tried a few years ago.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature
I have to question in what world one would need “the latest mouse” every year. The only reason is if Logitech makes such a crap mouse that it starts to fall apart, thus necessitating a new one.
The only other avenue is that the mouse just gets more and more bloated with additional “features” year-on-year.
The principle isn’t the worst, but the implications are less than ideal
There are people who buy a new phone every years, even though they don’t really need to. Why wouldn’t the same philosophy apply to some people who are enthusiastic about computer hardware? Actually, when it comes to CPUs and video cards, it already does.
But anyway, even though the customer could get some perceived benefit from this arrangement, the company would still benefit more from the perpetually rising stock value. You know the usual capitalist mentality that would drive this sort of innovation and product development.
Because mice are a solved problem. New phones can ostensibly have new features, better cameras, better displays, etc. Similarly, new cards and CPUs can give you measurably better performance.
A new mouse is something you get when your old mouse is broken, and if that’s happening every year, then there’s a big problem.
What’s the value proposition here? Free no-questions-asked replacement if it breaks? Free upgrades when new models come out (though they have no real incentive to keep developing new “forever mice”)?
If my mice on average last, say, 6 years and cost $175 (I splurged on a high-end one last time), the subscription will have to be less than $2.40/month, and since customers absolutely hate subscriptions, especially if there’s no real benefit, probably even less than $1.50/month for most to even consider it.
In fact the Logitech mouse before my current mouse lasted 12 years and cost me $75, so that’s a max subscription cost of 50 cents/month for it to be comparable.
It will be $7.99 - look it’s so much less than $175, so much cheaper!
/s
The article says this mouse will be $200 upfront, plus the subscription.
I have used nothing but Logitech thumb-ball mice for the past 20 years. I love my MX Ergo.
If Logitech ever sells a mouse with a subscription, I don’t care how nice it is, I’ll have my own fucking PCB made and design my own QMK capable mouse before I’ll pay for it.
Just sell me the $90 mouse that lasts 5 years. I refuse to accept mouse feudalism.
Who pays 90USD for a mouse that lasts only 5 years
Tim Apple.
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I got a “Ploopy” a while back. Open source, QMK powered mouse. Terrible name, but it’s been working like a charm. All components are 3D printed or can be purchased cheaply. No good wireless options right now, though. The power efficient protocols needed are all proprietary afaik.
That’s cool! I only really do thumb-ball mice, though, and I haven’t really seen alternatives to Logitech in the same form-factor. I imagine they might even have a patent on it.
Buuuut I’m betting I can do stuff like repair the couple of MX Ergos I have lying around if I need to if I get motivated about it. Or like, maybe there’s a way I can have replacement parts fabricated or use the shell of a Logitech mouse as the basis for something similar.
You hear that Logitech? Charge me a subscription fee and I will absolutely figure this out and distribute blueprints and repair guides to the whole ass internet. I appreciate your ergonomics, your unifying dongles, your precision mode, and all your hotkeys, but $90 is plenty for a mouse. Don’t get greedy or I will personally bite you in the ass.
Edit: oh duh, the ball isn’t at the thumb.
Edit again: oh wait they do have a thumb ball one. Fixed the link.
Ooohhh, that does look promising! Good to know there’s some kind of viable alternative!
Disgusting. Utterly disgusting. This idea belongs in the garbage bin.
Most reasonable consumers won’t go for this. it’s a greed play.
Give me mice that I own; not mice to rent.
But I have a mouse from 20 years ago that works just fine.
We have Logitech wired mice at work and they’ve turned into straight garbage in recent years. I’ve literally opened one brand new and had the cable begin fraying where it feeds into the mouse within a week. Previously, our Logitech mice would last for years without issue with 24/7 use.
I guess exactly this is part of the companies’ problem here. It’s bad for the shareholder value and the managers’ bonuses.
I’m using a Logitech mouse from probably 15 years ago that gets daily use and works just fine. I’m not sure how much it cost, but I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than about $20 for a mouse and probably the only reason I’d have picked one from Logitech is that it was the only one available at the shop I happened to be in at the time that wasn’t a ridiculous overpriced “gaming” product.
Right now, companies are chasing LLM’s and subscription services. I’m terrified of what’s going to come next, lol. At what point does late stage capitalism stop?
This is as stupid an idea as Wendy’s ‘surge pricing’ nonsense.
Sometimes I am glad that super cheap Chinese hardware is a thing and I can always switch to those in case these greedy companies all became shit
“Forever mouse” is a marketing term to sell you a subscription. I’m not going to pay a subscription to get driver updates or to use basic functionality of the mouse. I have a forever keyboard (expensive mechanical keyboard) and it does not require a subscription and I can use the entire functionality without paying ever again.
Expensive mechanical keyboard? I have been using this since the mid 2000’s
I don’t even have the software for my mouse installed. I think she’s massively overestimating the value of mouse software updates.
She’s just trying to figure out how to make renting cheap peripherals make sense so that you can keep paying Logitech forever.
