Logitech is one of the biggest players in the world of accessories, and not just for Mac, iPad, and iPhone owners. It makes some of the most popular keyboards and mice around, and it's a company that's always on the lookout for what comes next. But that desire to find a way to continually find new ways to make money has found it in hot water, and it's all because of a mouse.
In a recent podcast interview Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber was heard saying that he believed that the company should look towards building the "forever mouse," a product that would allow people to buy a single mouse and then have it last considerably longer than traditional input devices. Faber likened it to a watch that would last a lifetime, but there obvious question soon came up — how would such a thing be monetized.
So how would a company like Logitech monetize a mouse that lasts forever, in a world where people wouldn't need to give it money every couple of years to buy a new one? Well, it'd offer some sort of subscription model, of course. And that suggestion was as well received as you might imagine. But was it really such a bad idea?
Your forever mouse, for a price
The comments came in an episode of The Verge's Decoder podcast and have since been backtracked by the company.
“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.”
But the concept he suggested isn't all that crazy, especially in a world where subscriptions are becoming the norm. During the original podcast, Faber said that throwing away a used mouse just to buy a new one isn't the way we should be doing things. Likening such a mouse to a watch that he has no intention of ever throwing away, he pondered whether a mouse could be the same. "So why would I be throwing my mouse or my keyboard away if it’s a fantastic-quality, well-designed, software-enabled mouse," he wondered.
The elephant in the room is subscription fatigue, of course. Many people miss the days where they would pay a flat fee for a piece of software and then use it until they upgraded to another, paid version further down the line. But these days the App Store has conditioned people to expect free updates forever, making that model impossible to maintain.
The hardware market is slightly different, but Faber appears to be suggesting that there are only so many different ways a mouse can be made. It's a device with x number of buttons and a scroll wheel — but it's the software that matters. It's software that controls what the mouse can do, so why not pay a monthly subscription for that software and gain new features over the course of that mouse's lifetime?
This isn't the first time that a hardware company has thought about this, either. Car manufacturers have already dipped their toes into subscription services for their software features. Some even lock hardware features behind a paywall, too.
Ignoring the "forever mouse" concept for now, could we one day see a mouse require a subscription to make all of its buttons work? That would be a terrible idea. But a world where new features are added via software updates that we pay for via a monthly fee?
Would that really be so bad?
