this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 4 months ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

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..

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I think this idea is even stupider than it seems, and that's already pretty fucking bad. I don't think this idiot understands that people who still buy mice are people who didn't "upgrade" to iPads or just use their phone as their only computer. We are power users, and are more likely to smell the bullshit than anyone else.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

given how much is going on in the diy / open source keyboard community, I'm sure there's going to be some options

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

100%.

Even today, you can buy a component kit and 3D print your own custom shell for a DIY mouse. (the hardware quality is alright)

I can only imagine what the OSS community will do once companies like Logitech try rolling this crap out on a larger scale. It's like the outrage against all things wrong with printers, except so much lower tech that almost anyone could build their own.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

In the DIY space, I think trackballs have seen more development, mostly because there's really only three or four companies that make usable trackballs at all, and one of them is Logitech.

[–] [email protected] 225 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (8 children)

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.)

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (4 children)

I'll never buy a wired mouse again 🤷‍♂️

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure Logitech can build a forever mouse anymore with the way their QA's gone. Who's buying new mice regularly anyway?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

I've owned a g502 for over a decade now. I know their products are such shit now, I don't know what I'll do when it breaks. Definitely not get a mouse subscription, at least

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

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?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Mine started rubbing off after ~6mo

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

https://youtu.be/v5BhECVlKJA

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