this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
98 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37739 readers
713 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Seriously, fuck all these "subscription" ideas.
Why in the ever-loving fuck would I want to pay a subscription for a goddam computer mouse? Some techbro fuckwit is probably chest-bumping his own reflection in the mirror for coming up with this dumb idea.
Here's a novel idea to help you keep revenue going the right direction: try innovating something truly useful and new, rather than selling the same, regurgitated Hotel California bullshit to hapless users.
Yeah it’s a horrible idea in all the usual ways, but hear me out. What if Logitech figures out a way to provide actual value to the customer? What if you get a new mouse every year if you send the old one back? That way, you would be paying a subscription for always having the latest mouse. Probably not something I would do, but someone who has more money might appreciate a service like that.
Not sure if /s or not, but I’ll bite. That’s the opposite of what they’ve stated in the article. This would be a mouse that you buy and use forever, no physical upgrades, just software. There is no value for the customer, only the shareholders.
Not a surprise. That’s how subscription companies operate these days. Basically like the heated seats BMW tried a few years ago.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature
Well the mice would be ergonomically different so they would all need getting used to, and you know the waste of shipping and throwing away a perfectly good mouse every year to get a new one.
If I made a service like that, I would require the customer to send the old one back every year. Then the company could sell the refurbished mice instead of throwing them away.
I have to question in what world one would need "the latest mouse" every year. The only reason is if Logitech makes such a crap mouse that it starts to fall apart, thus necessitating a new one.
The only other avenue is that the mouse just gets more and more bloated with additional "features" year-on-year.
The principle isn't the worst, but the implications are less than ideal
There are people who buy a new phone every years, even though they don’t really need to. Why wouldn’t the same philosophy apply to some people who are enthusiastic about computer hardware? Actually, when it comes to CPUs and video cards, it already does.
But anyway, even though the customer could get some perceived benefit from this arrangement, the company would still benefit more from the perpetually rising stock value. You know the usual capitalist mentality that would drive this sort of innovation and product development.
Because mice are a solved problem. New phones can ostensibly have new features, better cameras, better displays, etc. Similarly, new cards and CPUs can give you measurably better performance.
A new mouse is something you get when your old mouse is broken, and if that's happening every year, then there's a big problem.