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Peripheral and video giant Logitech is running back comments about a supposed subscription-based mouse that’s supposed to be “the last mouse you ever buy.” Such a hardware-as-service model was quick to piss off consumers. Company execs are now saying, no, they’re not trying to build a mouse or any other PC controls with a long-term subscription fee.
Last month, Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber detailed her company’s designs on a so-called “Forever Mouse.” The exec told The Verge’s Nilay Patel that one of the company’s engineers was working on a mouse that’s supposed to be so good, you’d never want—or need—another one. She attributed it to a watch, where just because it’s old, doesn’t mean it still can’t work with some regular TLC.
How would that work in today’s current buy-it-and-toss-it ecosystem? Faber suggested it may be close to a service model, akin to the company’s video conferencing products. Instead of paying for upgrades to the hardware, users would pay fees for software updates over time, though Faber said in the interview that was only one monetization model they were looking at.
When asked directly if she could envision a subscription mouse, Faber replied “Possibly,” according to the Verge’s podcast transcript.
Now, Logitech is telling anybody who listens that, no, it’s not making a subscription-based mouse. Logitech’s head of communications Nicole Kenyon offered the same line to several outlets, “There are no plans for a subscription mouse.”
Kenyon added in her statement that Faber’s description of the so-called Forever Mouse was “not an actual or planned product but a peek into provocative internal thinking on future possibilities for more sustainable consumer electronics.”
It’s clear from Faber’s original comments that she wasn’t talking explicitly about a product consumers would have in their hands anytime soon. Still, folk online were more taken aback by a CEO’s first instinct to turn to a software-as-a-service model. We’ve seen how things have played out with the switch from cable to streaming subscriptions. To put it bluntly, consumers are tired of paying monthly for services. The idea of paying for hardware as routine as a mouse on a monthly basis was too much to bear.
