This is like the lover who says “wouldn’t it be crazy if you and me had a threesome with your best friend”? Then claims not to be serious when the idea is rejected.
Sort of like how excited Wendy’s was to offer surge pricing, until 2 days later when they suddenly had “no plans to ever implement surge pricing, what’re yall talkin’ 'bout?”
I highly recommend the Decoder podcast from The Verge. The host Nilay Patel interviews the Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber and this comes up. He comes at the question earnestly but can’t understand how she tries to justify this. It’s a pretty fun listen. Link: theverge.com/…/logitech-ceo-hanneke-faber-mouse-k…
The transcript is there too if you just want to read it. Here’s some of the relavent bits.
What made the mouse a forever mouse?
It was a little heavier, it had great software and services that you’d constantly update, and it was beautiful. So I don’t think we’re necessarily super far away from that.
But, again, I just come back to the cost. You sell me the mouse once. Maybe I’ll pay 200 bucks for it.
The business model obviously is the challenge there. So then software is even more important when you think about it. Can you come up with a service model? In our video conferencing business, that is now a very important part of the model, the services, and it’s critical for corporate customers.
Let’s come to that in a second because that makes sense to me. You sell managed services to enterprises. You price support contracts for cameras and whatever. That’s an ongoing need businesses have. I’m still stuck on, “You’re going to sell me a mouse once and it’s going to have ongoing software updates forever.”
Imagine it’s like your Rolex. You’re going to really love that.
But Rolex has to employ software engineers to ship me over-the-air updates forever.
But the artifact is like your Rolex, and then given that we know the technology that we attach to changes, it’s not going to be like your Rolex in that it doesn’t have to ever change. Our stuff will have to change, but does the hardware have to change? I’m not so sure. We’ll have to obviously fix it and figure out what that business model is. We’re not at the forever mouse today, but I’m intrigued by the thought.>
…
I’m going to ask this very directly. Can you envision a subscription mouse?
Possibly.
And that would be the forever mouse?
Yeah.
So you pay a subscription for software updates to your mouse.
Yeah, and you never have to worry about it again, which is not unlike our video conferencing services today.
But it’s a mouse.
But it’s a mouse, yeah.
I think consumers might perceive those to be very different.
[Laughs] Yes, but it’s gorgeous. Think about it like a diamond-encrusted mouse.
Logi CEO: “Heh, yeah, well you know, there is a rich tradition of tech companies pranking the public with silly, unexpected practical jokes on April 1.”
“But sir, it’s August.”
“Oh, well I guess that’s what makes it so unexpected, heh. Yeah. Unless you want a mouse subscription? No? Oh, just forget that I asked - that was, ah, part of the joke. Apr- August Fools!”
I’m still replacing switches on my stupid Logitech MX (faulty design that’s been going for many years) but once it’s dead for good I will switch over to the Ploopy thumb trackball in a heartbeat.
I really like the look of the Ploopy Classic. I use an Elecom Huge, and I love it. I grew up with a Logitech TrackMan Marble (the old school one, not the ambidextrous one) and I loved it. So the Elecom Huge is like a modern version of that old classic, and it’s great for office and daily use - not so much for gaming though.
The trick is to only learn a couple new movement mappings at a time and use them during one’s workflow for a while, up until they feel ingrained. Then repeat, iteratively building up one’s movement skills in VIM.
One can say many things about VIM, but not that learning it’s movement mappings will make your required APM (let alone mouse clicks) go up to “get stuff done”. Honestly, once a basic set of these movements has been learned, any other editor without them will feel like a drag.