A subscription plan for your mouse

HP suggested some time ago that it might be better to subscribe to your printer.

For example you can get an HP ENVY (costs around 60 bucks) for 6.99/month including 20 printable pages. That's 83.88 in the first year. I can't really imagine who this would be a good offer for, but at least in theory I can imagine a situation where this isn't completely stupid.

Logitech apparently looked into this and came to the conclusion that a subscription plan for a mouse is a really good idea.

The idea goes something like this. You buy a well-made mouse (probably not one from Logitech) and then you get updates for it... for life, because you never need a new mouse if it's well-made. And then you sign up to a subscription plan so you can enjoy all those new features.

I have a few things to say about that right away.

Firstly, I have mice lying around here somewhere that still have a 9-pin connection and - at least in theory - they should still work. So I already have a few Forever Mice that weren't quite so forever for various reasons . For example, because a connector has changed or because that thing was mechanical or maybe because it's just crap.

My current mouse is programmable. And I'm wondering what functions I can get with a subscription that I wouldn't already have without a subscription. It's not like you can add any arbitrary function you want. The hardware has to support it. My mouse has received firmware updates in the past. Now my mouse has this function so that it works as intended. Not so that it can be improved in the long term. But here we have to talk very clearly about options.

What can be upgrade, since nobody installs hardware for things that you haven't even thought of yet. As for the rest, we're actually talking about something that goes without saying, because if a mouse can basically get firmware updates, then you can assume that this will be used to ensure that it gradually trends towards the functionality you actually paid for in the first place.

HP is not talking explicitly about additional functions here, but about updates , but I'm having trouble imagining what other types of updates these are. All updates that a mouse can get over the course of its life are those that actually provide the function you paid for. If, for example, the fingerprint sensor is no longer accepted by Windows because it no longer meets the security standards, then no update will change that. It's still the same sensor.

What we're actually talking about here is most likely a mouse like mine, where half of the functions are locked behind a paywall. For example, I have the mouse but I can only program it if I spend X a month. The €150 mouse - which will probably cost €120 - is then a €60 mouse until you invest a few more euros a month to make it a €150 mouse. And most likely you'll be in a similar position to HP and pay off the €150 in full in the first year, only to become the proud owner of an increasingly expensive and older mouse over time.

That sounds like a great idea. I already have an idea what Logitech should hide behind the paywall to really boost business: double clicks or smooth scrolling, for example.

Another possibility would be an artificial incompatibility with the control software updates. That means I could program the mouse but I no longer have a "compatible" firmware on the mouse. I only have that with the subscription. But that's unlikely because few people will sign up for that when everything works as intended without it. And if you fall into the "trap" years later because you didn't subscribe you'll probably realize that the new mouse over there looks much better than the worn-out thing in front of you.

I don't embed TikTok directly, but here's Hanneke Faber (Logitech's CEO) talking briefly about it in an interview.

Just like our VC solutions. Is it the same with a mouse? It really isn't, is it?

Here's the same on TheVerge.