Logitech Wants to Sell You [Checks Notes] a Mouse Subscription. Yes, You Read That Right

By Petr Navovy | Miscellaneous | August 2, 2024 |

By Petr Navovy | Miscellaneous | August 2, 2024 |

Sometimes you see something on the news and you have to check three times that you’re not reading The Onion. I regret to inform you that, yes, that headline up there is accurate, and, no, it’s not from a piece in The Onion but instead from the most potent provider of unbelievably ridiculous headlines: real life. Logitech—yes, that Logitech: once a fairly prolific and successful (or, rather, let’s say, prevalent) provider of computer and video game hardware, but now a largely forgotten and mocked sidenote in tech circles—has come up with a truly disruptive and innovative product:

A computer mouse that you pay a subscription fee for.

Huh. I never knew that a single sentence in English could cause a brain hemorrhage, but I guess you learn something new every day.

In a recent interview, new Logitech CEo Hanneke Faber floated the idea of something called a ‘forever mouse’, a computer mouse that you can keep using for a long time, pitching it thus: ‘It’s a little heavier, it has 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.’ Just what people want from a mouse! Heaviness! And software updates! Hopefully, it’ll have to be constantly connected to the internet, too, lest it become a brick—that’d be the dream complete then!

There’s so much in this story that is so indicative of where we’ve gotten to as a society that it really is almost impossible to distinguish it from parody. Even aside from the ‘everything has to be a subscription’ hellscape that it describes, I love how the Logitech CEO is emphasising the long-lasting nature of this ground-breaking mouse—how it’ll be able to be used for a long time, and you won’t have to buy another one straight away. You know: HOW WE USED TO ROUTINELY MAKE PRODUCTS. Everybody still has that one appliance, right? Maybe a washing machine or a fridge. Built in the ’60s or ’70s. Covered in sturdy knobs, still working today, that would protect you from a bomb explosion if you hid behind it. Now, with planned obsolescence being all the rage, the idea of a product actually lasting some time feels almost alien.

The ‘innovation’ the tech bro class slobber over really only ever innovates new ways of wringing money our of exploited workers. They innovate ways of increasing profits for their shareholders. If ever an actually useful change comes about as a result, that’s almost irrelevant. Where’s that cartoon about the world burning to a crisp and it being worth it because the shareholders made record profits for a little while when you need it?

You can see more about Logitech’s ‘forever mouse’ in the video below if you fancy your eyes bulging with disbelieving rage: