During a recent episode of The Verge’s Decoder podcast, Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber shed some possible insight into the company’s view on one of its most important products. Saying that “the mouse built this house,” Faber shares the planning behind a Forever Mouse, a premium product that the company hopes will be the last you ever have to buy. There’s also a discussion about a subscription-based service and a deeper focus on AI.
For now, details on a Forever Mouse are thin, but you better believe there will be a catch. The Instant Pot was a product so good that customers rarely needed to buy another one. The company went bankrupt.
premium mouse that receives constant updates
Come on. How many firmware updates can we really expect for a mouse?
I’ve had an m570 for about 10 years. Every time it broke, I fixed it. Why do we need a subscription?
This is not about you, but about them. It’s not that you need a subscription. It’s that they need you to have a subscription.
But they need to convince me that the subscription is worthwhile!
If you are going to ask questions maybe you are not the target demographic.
Damned straight! I’ll stick with my boring old non-ai grandpa mouse.
Back in my day the mice had a tail, no scroll wheel, and only 2 buttons!
Back in my day, mice had balls.
When I were a lad, we used vi.
We used trackballs and loved them. We greased the mechanism with our forehead sweat as was the fashion at the time.
But they need to convince me that the subscription is worthwhile!
They’ll remove any mice from the market that doesn’t have a subscription model and others will follow suit.
Future mouse DLC: “Special promotion! $5 discount on unlocking right mouse button!”
They’ll remove any mice from the market that doesn’t have a subscription model and others will follow suit.
Good luck with removing aliexpress mice from the market
I doubt the open source options will be adopting this strategy either.
I have a ploopy trackball and love it.
If they only had a thumb trackball…
Like this?
How does it compare to the m570?
I use a left handed one, so I can’t really comment on most ergonomic computer accessories.
Damn, I never thought to look there! Thanks!
Not if they and their competitors remove all the other options.
Nah. There will always be companies just selling a mouse.
You wouldn’t print a mouse.
Hell yeah!
Are they bluetooth?
How many firmware updates can we really expect for a mouse?
Almost none, why the hell would a mouse ever need firmware updates except to fix fuckups? It has one job, translate clicks and movements into signals for the computer.
I used an HP dead stock “this ships with every computer we sell” optical mouse for twenty years before it broke.
All my mice are similar ages, even my Logitech wireless.
I did just have a 15 year old one die, but it got used about 8 hours a day all that time.
So Logitech can bill every one of its customers every month.
No sale. It’s ridiculous.
No sale.
Joke’s on you; they’re into that shit. Their techno-feudalist wet dream is to force you into rentals for everything.
This from a company who refused to update their drivers for a USB speaker system for 7, even though it was still actively being sold at stores.
I had bought it a few months earlier at a Fry’s, on sale. I think the sku was just about 2 years old, just expiring on their support policy, as a new OS dropped.
Their customer support told to me kick sand.
Fuck Logitech. Their Mice are the only thing I’ve continued to use because they are actually reliable. But now they’re trying to enshitify that behind a subscription, so that’s it.
Businesses could save a lot of money by just firing their CEOs
If anyone’s job could be replaced with ChatGPT, it’s these chucklefucks.
And now I no longer wish to buy Logitech products…
Logitech’s desire to put AI in my IO devices is exactly why I am moving to a different manufacturer. I want solid hardware, not hardware as a service. HP also is trying this with printers and it’s total bullshit.
If I am paying a monthly fee, I’d better not also have to buy garbage hardware. That better be provided for free and replaced when it inevitably fails.
Logitech pissed me off years ago when they didn’t honour a warranty because I bought a flawed product before they extended the warranty on them.
I have not even been tempted by their products because there are so many other peripheral manufacturers out there that put out great products.
The Instant Pot was a product so good that customers rarely needed to buy another one. The company went bankrupt.
Man, we had to replace the fuse on ours four times before we gave up on it; I don’t think ‘product longevity’ was a major factor in the brand’s downfall. It also did a shit job of cooking rice.
I also highly doubt Logitech’s ability to make a “forever” mouse with how many I’ve had to RMA due to faulty left click switches. Get your product design, supply chain, and QA in order before you start trying to tie people down with wholly unnecessary and unwanted subscriptions. Shitty ent seeking MBA vampires fucking everything up for everyone.
Instant Pot didn’t simply go bankrupt. It was busted out by private equity.
Oh see I didn’t interpret the forever mouse as a single product, more likely they’d like to use even cheaper switches and components and make RMA/replacement normal under the subscription. New mouse every year for just $14.99/month - what a deal! Right, guys? Guys?
Welp, looks like I just bought my last Logitech mouse. I’ve sworn by them for over 20 years.
Nope, fuck you Logitech.
same. every logitech peripheral i’ve ever had was great, and the one time an old mouse i’d been using for 2 years broke, i emailed them about it and they sent me a MX master 2S, which was several tiers above the one i had, for free.
oh well. time to find a new mouse brand
Their flight sim stuff is absolute fucking garbage
Fuck that, no thanks! How about you build repairable mice that can last forever instead?
With open source firmware. Preferably QMK + VIA.
User-serviceable switches would be so nice…
Bite my shiny metal PS/2 adapter
The answer to this is simple. Go private. Get a buyout and delist so you aren’t literally required to permanently and constantly grow your company bigger and sell more than you did last year for the rest of eternity in the name of the almighty shareholders.
Sell great hardware to people who need it, develop a loyal fan base, and treat them right, forever. I guarantee that the rate of valid, reasonable purchases of high-quality, durable new mice and keyboards is more than enough to sustain a very healthy company full of very talented employees forever, as long as they aren’t required to always make more money than ever before.
Meh, I’m going to hold out for a subscription-based AI-enabled mousepad.
With OneDrive …
Another proof ceo’s that most of those cunts in charge either got there by winning the birth lottery or bullshitted their way up and are complete clueless idiots. Any sane person with an idea of what they are doing knows its all bullshit.
Hard pass.
And I don’t want to buy it. Not everything needs to be a subscription.
Or an app.
Not everything needs to be a subscription.
More like “[almost] everything needs not to be a subscription!”
Yep. Products should never need subscriptions. Only services. Things like Photoshop even, absolutely shouldn’t be subscriptions.
I don’t see the point of this. Why would a mouse need constant software updates? I could plug in a 20 year old mouse and it would work just fine on my PC, no updates needed.
There is no point… This corporate parasites justifying their new scam.
But like. AI. Ya know? Predictive mouse algorithm to make you clicky more gooder
“This is a premium feature. To unlock the right-click menu, just enjoy this 30 second ad, or click to add to your monthly subscription.”
