Thing that sucks about this, despite how stupid a “forever” mouse concept is (that isn’t a project with titanium and replaceable parts) is that this is normal in the software realm. But the grift is so easily observable and absurd when it’s applied to hardware. It’s normal operations for SaaS. It’s what SaaS is.
In my experience, mice don’t really break since optical tracking replaced rollerballs.
What does happen is that the exterior gets grody and the glidepads wear out.
A true “forever mouse” would be one where the stuff that gets worn out is easy to clean or replace. Ideally the tracking unit itself can be replaced, although that might be excessive.
For Logitech to produce a mouse like this, however, would require them to make a multi-decade commitment to supply parts and specs, which is basically just a cost sink in today’s world.
In my experience, mice don’t really break since optical tracking replaced rollerballs.
Sadly they do, sometimes they stop being able to click, or do double clicks or other weirdness. I have gone through a few mice over the years. Oddly, the newer a mouse the more likely this seems to be the case. Don’t throw away old but working peripherals.
I have been trying to navigate the current mouse market, I am hoping that these new fancy “good for 20 million clicks” switches that have migrated from mechanical keyboards over to mice mean that my next mouse will last for 20 years or so. Now to just find a way to differentiate between the 500,000 mice that are all at the €45 price point with the same form factor and specs.
Ploopy kinda fills that niche, as the bits are replaceable and the non-generic parts don’t require stuff like your own injection moulding equipment. Not quite there yet, nor do they have a the full range of stuff you might want (and what they do have isn’t cheap), but it’s a nice start.
Thanks for the link, I did not know about this outfit (and jeez, I know naming stuff is hard, but “Ploopy” is kinda bad as a company name).
While I appreciate what they’re trying to do, the aesthetics are very much “hackerspace afficionado”. Logi could presumably bring premium materials and finishing to a “forever mouse”.
(and jeez, I know naming stuff is hard, but “Ploopy” is kinda bad as a company name).
Naming themselves after something which implies immortality would’ve been my pick - something like “Theseus”, to suggest a Ship-of-Theseus kind of immortality, I dunno.
This whole uproar is just silly. At this time, most of us still using a mouse are smart enough to not fall for it. Everyone else is on their cell phones.
Plus, I gather it was merely an idea they floated. If they were somewhat serious at the outset, I doubt they are not with all the push back this story has generated.
even hp already fucked off from this idea for less-used consumables, imagine being the product manager thinking you could make this fly for a decades-old computing peripheral people use literally daily
landlord brain truly is something remarkable
A mouse that lasts forever… until y’know, it breaks, because it’s a piece of hardware that actively gets worn out.