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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So, what is the difference between this approach and just selling an extended warranty?
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.
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
The Logitech k120 is a worthy warrior. Id never get an expensive keyboard from them though
Oh wow I never wanted to stop buying Logitech before. I guess there’s a first time for everything. Fuck this noise.
yeah, I’ve always gone for Logitech and they have had great customer support. i guess I’ll have to look for something else next time i replace a peripheral.
Really? They went to shit over a decade ago. Cheap $30 Chinese Amazon mice surpassed Logitech in quality around 2013. I was getting so sick and tired of spending $80 on a mouse with a middle click that was going to break in a couple of years.
Yeah I bought a Logitech mouse and a little after a year the right click went bad. It would randomly click twice, never stop clicking, or not click at all. I ended up ordering some replacement japanese switches on digikey for like $5, unsoldered the old ones and resoldered the new ones. It’s been close to 10 years now and with the new switches, it’s the best mouse I’ve ever owned. I’m not happy with Logitech but I am happy with my custom mouse
I really like their master MX master mice. I find them much more comfortable than alternatives.
2013 might be an exaggeration, but yea most Chinese brand mouses (Lamzu for example) are solid picks unless you care about software
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.
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?
Trying to make a flagship product and keep it pumped up through subscription sounds a lot like live service games.
And those all fucking suck.
Welp, looks like I just bought my last Logitech mouse. I’ve sworn by them for over 20 years.
Nope, fuck you Logitech.
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?
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.
- We will move the mouse for you
- We will enable mouse accel when we think you would want it
- Pre-click the buttons
- Your Logitech Forever Mouse just purchased another Logitech Forever Mouse
Maybe they mean one with a nuclear battery.
Also how the everliving hell do you add AI to input devices?
Think one of those UI’s that move your mouse to an “OK” button, but even worse, and everywhere (…ehm, everywhere it feels like). Add a Crowdstrikeability potential and you’ve got your AI crap. What’s not to love about it? (and by “love” I mean “hate”…)
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.
Bite my shiny metal PS/2 adapter
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.
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?
Yeah I really can’t imagine any scenario where I want my mouse to… Help me prompt AI??
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.
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.
That sounds perfect for what I need actually. Thanks for sharing that!
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.
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
Weird, I’ve had my mouse practically forever and it works just fine. I guess I better throw it in the trash so I can jump on this subscription based opportunity.
Reminder that getting a subscription service means moving away from something you buy occasionally to something you pay forever
Not only that, but there’s a 100% chance they sell this shit to you as a forever mouse, then in a few years if it’s not making them money hand over fist, they’ll discontinue it and keep your money.
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