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Logitech CEO Wants to Sell You a Subscription-Based 'Forever Mouse'

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.

pachrist ,

I hate this approach to business.

Coupling subscriptions with forced obscolecence is a nightmare. If HP made the best printer money could buy, using it with a subscription model would be a hard sell. But they make shit printers that die at the drop of a hat, so coupling them with a subscription is asinine.

Logitech makes a decent mouse, passable webcams, and shit keyboards.

Just in case anyone from Logitech ever reads this, I own 2 MX Verticals, an MX Ergo, and an MX Master 2S. I love them all, but I’d rather use an OEM bog standard Dell mouse than pay for a subscription.

douglasg14b ,
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

They don’t even make good mice technically because of planned obsolescence.

Their switches die, intentionally, long before the life time of any other components on their mice. And have for nearly 10 years now.

calcopiritus ,

They way I got introduced to hardware as a service is that it was a solution to planned obsolescence.

In theory, a hardware subscription means that if you pay for X months of that hardware, you gonna get it. Doesn’t matter if it breaks, it should be replaced while your subscription lasts.

So taking that into account, the less the hardware breaks, the more profit they have. So not only should it eliminate planned obsolescence, it would make engineering for durable products an actually very profitable business.

Masamune ,

So, what is the difference between this approach and just selling an extended warranty?

calcopiritus ,

With subscription you don’t own the product, but also you don’t pay up front.

With subscription, you should be able to buy as many months as you want. With extended warranty, I think companies usually only sell 1 extended warranty per item.

(I’m pulling the prices out of my ass, don’t try to calculate which one is more “worth it”.

Extended warranty:

30€ for the mouse (3 years warranty) 5€ 1 year extended warranty.

You are sure to have the item for at least 4 years. After that, you can use it until it breaks.

Subscription:

1€/month

You get to use the mouse for exactly the months you paid for. No more, no less

Also, with subscriptions you are likely to get a second hand item. But when you buy the item you are gonna get 1st hand unless you shop at Amazon.

I personally wouldn’t buy a subscription, I prefer to own it. However, I’ll admit that it’s not black and white, and subscriptions also have some benefits.

Another way instead of per time window is per use. For example, in the case of a mouse, per clicks.

So if you buy 1.000.000 clicks and rarely use the computer, you get to own the mouse for a very long time for very cheap, just in case you ever want to use it. This is basically today’s planned obsolescence, except the item doesn’t become trash, the company would just reset the counter and you or the next client can keep using it. If you use it a lot, it’s going to become real expensive real fast though.

Xenny ,

The Logitech k120 is a worthy warrior. Id never get an expensive keyboard from them though

Krauerking ,

It’s really insane that they want the good press and loweree manufactured volume of a quality item… But also for it to fail and you need to buy up whenever they arbitrarily say so.

It’s horrifying. Absolutely broken fucking mindset that only works if we truly are trapped having to buy from them and I just don’t see how that can be true before someone says fuck it and competes.

It’s so grossly profit seeking I just will feel really defeated if it actually works.

viking ,
@viking@infosec.pub avatar

The Logitech UltraX Flat was hands down the best keyboard I ever used in my life. Sadly after decades of use (with a ps/2 to usb adapter) at some point some key pressure sensors started failing, so I had to switch. But I swear if I ever see a new one on ebay, I’ll get it in a heartbeat.

VirtualOdour ,

I used to just buy Logitech when I needed something because it’s good quality and good value, they seem to be intent on moving away from both

umbraroze ,

Oh I have a Forever Mouse. Bought a Microsoft Intellimouse Optical in 2001 or so. Still works. Use it with my Raspberry Pi sometimes. Also bought another Microsoft wireless laptop mouse like a decade ago. Still works just fine.

…The Logitech mouse that I bought against my better judgement in 2020 is starting to show signs of fatigue.

Also how the everliving hell do you add AI to input devices? Are they just going to guess what I’m pointing at?

rottingleaf ,

Maybe they mean one with a nuclear battery.

SSJMarx ,

Also how the everliving hell do you add AI to input devices?

They won’t, but they figure there are probably still some investors floating around who will buy that stupid line.

rottingleaf ,

I think it’s time to stop with subscription bullshit.

I understand that they prefer that, but it quickly becomes the only purpose fulfilled by these devices which is not fulfilled by more normal ones, while the main purposes suffer, looking closer to an excuse.

Also the argument of businesses going bankrupt when something is done too well - that’s by design. Progress works via removing bottlenecks one after another. Businesses which were located at those bottlenecks die. It’s fine, the society doesn’t need them anymore. Management and employees have mostly transferable skills and experience. If they earn less, then maybe their work is worth less, since the business failed. Investors lose money, and that’s fine, it’s the purpose of investment - judge wisely and win, judge poorly and lose.

It still irritates me how sometimes socialist-minded people say that it’s bad that in capitalism businesses (and whole industries) fail, and this should be fixed, but then blame capitalism for the results of preventing businesses (or whole industries) from failing.

I have internalized all the leftist arguments heard here, some are fundamentally and practically very true, but sometimes fixing the thing you have would yield results just as good or better as looking for that better thing you don’t know where.

OK, I’ve diverted from the point.

Somehow businesses making nails and screwdrivers don’t complain about making too good a screwdriver. Because, well, the good screwdriver still dies after sometime, and the amount of people who need tools grows, yadda-yadda.

This should work the same way in computing, but hype-scamming customers is such a norm there, that doing business the normal way seems the way to bankruptcy to them. They should all fail. We are doing - for the real-life useful output, not for FLOPS and IOPS, - just a bit more than in 90s, but for orders of magnitude bigger cost.

skyspydude1 ,

Instant Pot was a product so good that customers rarely needed to buy another one. The company went bankrupt.

Bull-fucking-shit. That’s just not how any of this works.

There are plenty of companies that make appliances that last a long fucking time, and don’t have to rely on fucking DLC micro transaction AI bullshit. The reason Instant Pot went bankrupt is the same reason a ton of popular companies have recently had issues: They got bought by private equity (who also owned Pyrex and fucked them over), saddled with a shitton of bad debt, squeezed of every bit of brand value they had, and then left to fall apart as the PE firm made off with millions.

The fact that the writer correlated “quality, durable good” with “unsuccessful business and bankruptcy” is absolutely one of the worst takes, and really shows just how pervasive this disgusting idea of “must be disposable to be profitable” really is.

TheReturnOfPEB , (edited )

Thank you for typing this up because I was not capable of doing it because vitriol messes up my WPM.

Cethin , (edited )

Partially true, but also they wouldn’t invest in something that lasts forever (without it costing an absurd amount of money or the subscription requirement). I like this video that shows the issue pretty well. (TLDW: Communist Germany made glass so durable it didn’t break as a product to sell to the west. No company would purchase it though because they made most of their profit from selling replacements. The glass is now what we call Gorilla Glass, which is really only available on phones, which are designed to be replaced every few years anyway.)

ColeSloth ,

100 years ago there was a meeting amongst lightbulb manufacturers that all collectively agreed to only design light bulbs to last about 1,000 hours. They were known as The Phoebus Cartel and Included Phillips and GE. Up until this agreement lighbulbs were typically lasting up to 2,500 hours. The manufacturers essentially created the concept of planned obsolescence because people weren’t buying as many lighbulbs as they wanted and it was decided to stop making longer lasting bulbs with higher costs. The whole thing started falling apart (competition of non members that were making bulbs, but they were all small operations, as well as patent expirations that GE had) and the start of world War two pretty much broke it up, as the Cartel couldn’t keep everything regulated and tested due to all the travel restrictions and such. But it still remains as the first global wide creation of planned obsolescence.

Extra fun fact: the common light socket screw design/size has remained the same since 1880.

Cethin ,

That is mostly a myth. They did agree of the lifetime, but it wasn’t planned obsolescence like people act. The lifetime of a bulb is directly related to how bright it is. If you make a really dim bulb it lasts a long time, which is how that one in the firehouse is still alive. It’s so dim it’s effectively useless. The group met to decide on a luminosity target, which also is a lifespan target effectively.

BastingChemina ,

Yes, A dim bulb is extremely inefficient, it will use a lot of electricity for a very small amount of light.

On the other hand you can make very efficient lightbulb that will be very bright for a small amount of electricity but last only for a few minutes.

The 1000 hours limits is a his middle ground.

ColeSloth ,

And what of the noble gas filled bulbs that were both brighter and longer lasting?

ColeSloth ,

Not if you read/believe most of the info on the wiki. US government fined GE over it in 1949.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

vga ,

There’s one way subscription-based hardware might be a good idea: it would motivate the companies to focus on quality and repairability, because they would be the ones who have to deal with that stuff.

rsuri ,

Another piece of the Forever Mouse puzzle is the software. Logitech uses its Options Plus software which essentially walks people through making prompts to interact with AI. But Faber says this is just the start:

This is intended to appeal to investors instead of customers.

VirtualOdour ,

Hey I need my mouse drivers to do chatGPT api calls, how else will I be able to email my toaster when I want to put bread in?

BluesF ,

Yeah I really can’t imagine any scenario where I want my mouse to… Help me prompt AI??

lemmyhavesome ,

Logitech stuff is already sort of a subscription based service, since their stuff is designed to fail after around 2 years.

Firipu ,
@Firipu@startrek.website avatar

Really? Been using a logitech trackball at work for 14 years now. My k750 keyboard lasted me almost 10y until the battery completely gave up and I wanted to upgrade. My Mx keys has lasted me for years since.

Similar stories for my mice, none of them have failed, I’ve only upgraded because I wanted lighter, more/less buttons or for other reasons.

jamyang ,

Their recent offerings have been a big disappointment. Gone were those days where you’d buy a logi mouse and keep it for atleast 5 years.

mp3 , (edited )
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

Yeah that’s gonna be a no for me dawg.

Last mouse I bought from them had a 2 years warranty. I thought okay fine. 1½ year after purchase, it started double-clicking.

Reached out to customer service, proof of purchase and everything. Agree that mouse need to be replaced, so they send me a new mouse, but for some reason they shipped it from the US to Canada and the custom duty was almost the price of a new mouse.

Big wtf, next time I’ll ask for either a refund or some kind of way to get a free replacement from a store in Canada…

ZetaLightning94 ,

I havent bought a mouse in 15 years. My current one was a spare while working IT.

BeardedGingerWonder ,

My previous mouse lasted about 15 years, replaced it with an MS intellimouse and it’s been going for about 3-4.

dandu3 ,

Customs fees are BS, but I’ve never had to pay them on a replacement product. Yet. I’m waiting on a couple OtterBoxes from the USA next week

muculent ,

Pass

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

I’ve already got a Forever Mouse though… I’m using a $25 Logitech M705 I bought 10 years ago, before they cheaped out and replaced the metal scrollwheel with a plastic one. Works great. I have to replace the battery once every two years or so. I’ve got an 11-year-old Logitech mouse at work too.

bane_killgrind ,

My g9x is getting flakey, and I’m very sad.

viking ,
@viking@infosec.pub avatar

My MX510 from 2005 died recently. I’m sure it’s just a cable issue since if I straighten it out perfectly, once in a while I can still get a signal through. So I’m contemplating of desoldering it and put a new one in, it was otherwise flawless.

systemglitch ,

I was a flunky of Logitech for most of my life, but after multiple mice in a row that developed the double click issue in far too short a time, I have vowed to never buy another.

I’ve been super happy using simple, cheap assed mice and I can’t tell the difference in the slightest.

$20 mice ftw.

GooseFinger , (edited )

If you have basic soldering skills and care enough to do this, the mouse buttons can be replaced for less than a dollar each. Not that this excuses Logitech’s poor QA, but my g502 g305 will last damn near forever if I keep replacing the switches like I have been.

Smokeless7048 ,

Yep,

I tried this, but damaged my middle click in the process.

did you ever watch the youtube ‘deepdive’ into the double click?

Turns out they are using an older switch which, while great at the time, wants a higher voltage than modern, electricity diet, mice.

youtu.be/v5BhECVlKJA

GooseFinger ,

I haven’t, but I’m also an electrical engineer so I’m pretty familiar with the issue haha

Fun thing you can do, is open your mouse and look up the PN of your switch on DigiKey. Filter for components with the same package/footprint, then sort by actuation force. Get a few different ones and try them out. They sell good brands there.

I play a lot of shooters, so my left click is real easy to press, and my right click is ~3x harder.

Smokeless7048 ,

the video makes a point that the wetting current for the switches Logitech uses is… i think 5v, however modern mice use much lower voltages. He doesn’t attribute it to malice, more “we have been using this part for 2 decades, why switch”

I ordered in these myself: www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004754399010.html but damaged the middle mouse click during disassembly.

eronth ,

My latest issue is the rubber on the g604 is starting to warp. No idea how I’ll ever fix that in a satisfactory way.

aesthelete ,

The true Achilles heel of Logitech gear is their rubberized feeling coatings on things. My mouse’s coating started to fail from daily use in a couple of years.

SaltySalamander ,

Mine started rubbing off after ~6mo

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

oh man that’s what killed my MX Ergo. I’m back to using M570’s with a simple plastic shell because they don’t rot.

systemglitch ,

I really should have done that. I replace capacitors in monitors and do other bits of soldering, including making my own audio cables. Seems like a natural extension. I bet I still have those mice in a storage tub.

wjrii ,

I have an old M560 that I actually really like. Other than ABS shine, the only sign of age is that the “back” button you click by nudging the scroll wheel from right to left does double clicks. Do you happen to know if that is similarly fixable?

Smokeless7048 ,

it was these keycaps: www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001681753913.html

Came with the wrong size space, so had to order a smaller in (not shown in the pic), which isn’t listed on Ali anymore.

Fijxu ,

lol

Astronauticaldb ,

This reminds me: I got a Logitech mouse as a gift a while back, and to get it functioning I needed to install a settings app for it for some reason. Today, I find in my Task Manager that they somehow installed an AI assistant platform thing using that settings app. I’m currently in the market for a new mouse lol.

LinusSexTips ,

Man the Logi settings app was utter trash, so slow to run or even change settings.

Ratbagd + Piper gave me the ability to change my DPI (no switch on the super light) without any bloat.

Astronauticaldb ,

That sounds perfect for what I need actually. Thanks for sharing that!

LinusSexTips ,

Was another perk switching to Linux, my keyboard I can bake in profiles (using a windows VM) then dispose of that VM once my keyboard is setup the way I wanted.

SteelSeries software is horrendous, up there with the Razer.

lemann ,

The first thing I did after purchasing an MX Master a few years ago was block the update server, after realising it downloads update binaries over plain HTTP and tries to automatically run them on boot 🤡

Very nice mouse tbh, just such a shame the company and their software is toilet water

PanArab ,

I will continue buying cheaper (and wired) mouses from no-name Chinese brands.

Buffalox ,

I have a Steelseries Rival 3 I’ve used for years now, it’s a lower end cheap one, but the quality is really good, and it’s still as good as new.

SaltySalamander ,

I'll never buy a wired mouse again 🤷‍♂️

winkerjadams ,

I never want to have to worry about charging my mouse 🤷‍♂️

Fuzzy_Red_Panda ,

A mouse that takes AA batteries are the best! No charging needed, just replace the battery once or twice a year.

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

Or use rechargeable AAs.

I am getting sick of one-off proprietary batteries in a form factor I’ll never see again or worse are permanently baked into a device.

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