I wasn't even going to bring it up I was just going to let it go and laugh it off but so many of you have reached out to me about this that I figured I'd give you all my two cents in a move so mindboggling yet so empty-minded which is Oso Logitech Logitech wants to charge you a subscription to use your mouse yeah let's talk about that so in a interview with the Verge new Logitech CEO Hanukkah Faber sat down with Nei Patel to have a friendly chat on a podcast and during that episode a
concept of the forever mouse was brought up that now is getting a lot of attention I'm going to read you guys a little transcript from this podcast during the conversation Hanukkah said I'm very intrigued the other day in Ireland our Innovation Center there one of our team members showed me a forever Mouse with the comparison into a watch this is a nice watch not a super expensive watch but I'm not planning to throw that watch away ever so why would I be throwing my mouse or keyboard away if it's a fantastic quality well-designed software enabled
Mouse the forever Mouse is one of the things that we'd like to get to Nei asked what made the mouse of forever Mouse Faber responded it's a little heavier it had great software and services that you'd constantly update and it was beauti beautiful so I don't think we're necessarily super far away from that now again I'm still reading this to you we're going to do a breakdown of reaction towards the end of this but that was just the intro so buckle up later on Nei said I'm still stuck on you're going to sell me a
mouse once and it's going to have ongoing software updates forever imagine it's like your Rolex you're going to really love that but Rolex has to employ software Engineers to ship me over the air updates forever but the AR fact is like your Rolex and then given what we know about technology that we attach to changes it's not going to be like your Rolex in that it doesn't have to ever change our stuff will have to change but does the hardware have to change I'm not so sure well obviously have to fix it and figure out
what that business model is we're not at the forever Mouse today but I'm intrigued by that thought Nei then said there are two ways people have traditionally proposed monetizing Hardware over time it's subscription fees and it's advertising is there a third way that I don't know about that you're thinking of Hanukkah says no the Third Way is the traditional model of we innovate and we have you upgrade that's the current model and we're pretty damn good at that model because we have pretty damn good innovators around the company who do come up with fabulous products
that is definitely the model today it's not a bad model at all especially since we're continuing to design for more sustainable products we're continuing to recycle and refurbish products all that is good but that said I'm intrigued by a forever mouse or forever video conferencing solution that you just update with software and create a business model around that and the hard-hitting questions from Nei I'm going to ask this very directly can you envision a subscription Mouse possibly and that would be the forever Mouse yeah so you pay a subscription for software updates to your mouse
yeah and you never have to worry about it again which is not unlike our video conferencing services today but it's a mouse but it's a mouse yeah I think consumers might perceive those to be very different yes but it's gorgeous think about it like a diamond encrusted Mouse there is so much to unpack there what are you doing Logitech now first up in the beginning I mentioned this is logitech's new CEO Hanukkah Faber recently she was head of multi-billion dollar nutrition companies overseeing projects there projects in the past include things like Kate Spade Pantene with
the majority of her business coming uh being at the head of certain panels for nutrition and beauty products now I'm not you know discounting any of her work she's probably very very intelligent which is why she holds such high positions in these multi-million and billion dollar companies but the jump from nutrition and Beauty to Logitech seems kind of strange to me not that the two necessarily have to be directly related cuz the CEO is mainly to just you know write the ship and make some more money but this just seems very strange and out of
touch which follows what logitech's been doing for the last four to 5 years so maybe it's the perfect pairing but I want to go back to one of the first things you talked about with this forever Mouse being compared to a Rolex watch sure but when talking about this forever Mouse she said you know it's a little heavier as if that's what the market in 2024 wants a mouse that's a little heavier now could this be something more so along the lines of like a productivity Mouse like their MX Master lineup possibly because that would
you know kind of be in line with a heavier Mouse gaming mice you know today's day and age we're like 55 Gams and under for a modern lightweight wireless mouse so the fact that right off the bat she's already aiming for a heavier Mouse just seems kind of odd but if it had great software and services that you would constantly update and it would be beautiful a mouse is in your hand we don't need like the the physical IAL appearance of a mouse is the least of importance here so the fact that they're so far
just worrying about it being a bit heavier and looking beautiful or Nic looking and having to it constantly be updated they're making it seem like as a bonus when those are three of the worst things that are the just the least importance here and another thing that I threw like 10 exclamations around this quote was when they were talking about their current business model of you know just the production and innovating their mice she said and we're pretty damn good at that model because we have pretty damn good innovators around the company who come up
with fabulous products this is the same Logitech who's making mice and keyboards that nobody asks for and are four to five years behind the current standard in the gaming Market this same Logitech who and releasing new versions of the super light seemingly just used modeling clay over where the right sided button used to be instead of properly smoothing out the mouse's contour and just called it a finger groove and the last point to touch on here is when Eli asks so you pay a subscription for software updates to your mouse and she replies yes and
you never have to worry about it again now what I find very interesting about a forever Mouse concept is again we're in 2024 and you look at where the mouse Market was 3 to four years ago hell even 2 to three years ago the Innovations in the mouse Market has drastically changed weight reductions higher sensors higher pulling rates one of the things that people probably upgrade the most is a mouse because like I said it's just changing so drastically and only getting better so the concept of a forever Mouse that's a bit heavier seems like
the polar opposite of what a mouse is today and not in a good Innovative way again it when these new mice are coming out you want to upgrade cuz it's lighter it's faster it's more efficient it's got better battery over time so why would software be the main selling point keeping a physical tangible mouse that the hardware will never change why is that a good thing guess what it's not Hanukkah Hardware has and will always be the most important part of the mouse you can't upgrade sens with software you can't reduce weight with software you
can't change shape and size of the mouse with software how don't they see that so the fact they're requiring software to be a paid subscription model that they will update over time is lunacy and like one of the things I always think of is like Adobe and stuff like if you're not connected to the internet I can't use any of my photo or video editing software so if if you have to pay to have this software updates to your mouse an active Subscription Service what happens if you're not online does your mouse just become a
brick there are so many things that I'm questioning and hating about this that it is it's insane it is truly insane and so out of touch that this current concept of a forever Mouse seems like a good idea to Hanukkah Faber and again I know she's a newly appointed CEO and this is one of the things that she brought up that she's very excited about which leads me to believe that the wheels are already in motion just reading this uh this podcast here and what she's talked about and what they've showed her and how it's
if this ever becomes a thing Logitech is as good as dead in the water I mean I don't know what else to say about that it is just such a crazy crazy crazy concept that like I said my initial my my initial reaction was to laugh this off but a bunch of you guys have been hitting me up on Twitter and on YouTube to talk about this that I wanted to bring it up to see what you guys thought about it and you know what I'm going to play the sarcastic devil's advocate here and I'm
going to say you know what Logitech do it I would love to see you do this and uh see you see the the market reaction and how the consumers react to this and uh how that does for the the company well guys that'll do it I'm random Frank P hope you enjoyed have a good day
