“When asked whether Logitech had some other model for monetization than subscription fees or advertising, Faber said no, and that she was ‘intrigued’ by a forever mouse that has an accompanying business model around software updates.”
Of course.
Okay, software, I get it. You pay forever for driver updates that used to be free. Or to “unlock” the scroll wheel.
Advertising? That’s going to be interesting. “This right-click was sponsored by Super Trustworthy VPN! Right-click again to start your free 24 hour trial period…”
Additionally, my collection of MX Masters with a broken gesture button* (which immediately kills all other mouse buttons) makes me hesitant to use the words “forever” and “Logitech” in the same sentence.
Why not the “two year mouse”? That would double the expected lifespan. Most likely for double the price. Plus subscription fees. And advertising.
* Yes, I know how to “neutralize” it with a knife, a paperclip and some duct tape.
I’ve already made the decision to ban all Logitech product after their ‘free Adobe cloud’ gimmick to lock people into that black hole and their onerous cancellation fees.
The thing is, Logitech still makes some of the best mice. My G502 was bought nearly a decade ago and still works flawlessly, is just the right weight (which I can adjust), and has buttons everywhere for the times I want that. The toggle flywheel for rapid scrolling is better (in my opinion) than inertial flicking. Maybe I just like that analogue feel. The DPI downshift button is great for graphics work when you need to get the pixel moved just so (although made for gamers).
As for this thing, it looks like a blackened cow pie that somebody dropped a laser pointer on, and the press release for it reads like it came out on April 1. I’ve never seriously considered using vendor software for the mouse, it’s always awful and third-party stuff does everything it does and better. If the hardware can’t work without the junkware, then it isn’t worth the weight of a cow pie.
“The forever mouse, I think, is one of the things that we’d like to get to,” Faber said when discussing the idea on the podcast. The discussion went on, with the CEO admitting that “the business model obviously is the challenge,” adding later that selling high-end hardware that is then supported by a subscription is how the company’s video conferencing business currently works. When pushed on whether Faber was suggesting that people buy a mouse and then pay a subscription, the response was simple. “Yeah, and you never have to worry about it again, which is not unlike our video conferencing services today,” the CEO answered.
Faber recently admitted that none of this was actually going to happen, arguing that “the mouse mentioned is not an actual or planned product but a peek into provocative internal thinking on future possibilities for more sustainable consumer electronics.”
The whole argument makes no sense. It goes beyond historically having avoided vendor software for keyboard and mice, which is just a personal choice. I cannot think of a single time, since I moved off of DOS and started using a mouse, that the point of failure was with the software or its drivers, where that was so catastrophic it made me have to toss the mouse. The very notion is laughable. It has always been the hardware that breaks. Mice, like keyboards, are so universal you don’t need software for them to perform their basic tasks.
So in reading it for the surface story, they have this theory completely inside out.
But then you get to the bottom of the article, and you see why they are babbling nonsense. They are rightly afraid of the end of bloated revenue from the tactic of creating disposable electronics at the expense of, well, everything. Subscription software for a mouse is a joke, but it’s the best they could “provocatively internally think of” when faced with the matter of losing “growth” from people no longer having to constantly replace hardware.
Funny thing is both my Bluetooth mice for both my laptops packed up by unresponsive right clicks, something Windows generic software doesn’t have an option to address. “Forgetting” them and reattaching didn’t help. Hardware problem you’d think. Not so. I swapped them between laptops and both work perfectly since.
