A \'Forever Mouse\' Is Silly, But I\'d Pay for a \'Forever Phone\'

Companies are trying to turn everything they can into a service, so that the drip-feed of money from customers never ends. That's not the worst thing if the service is valuable, but sometimes the ideas can verge on the silly side—such as the Logitech "Forever Mouse."

The Folly of the “Forever Mouse”

In an interview with The Verge, Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber expressed the idea of a mouse that would get new software features over the years, possibly with a paid subscription for users to get access to these later firmware and app updates.

The idea is to sell you a high-quality mouse that's not designed to be replaced every few years, but this, of course, isn't a smart business model. If you sell someone a product that never needs replacement, you won't get any repeat business. The potential answer for Logitech here is that you can support the mouse from the software side, and so have money come in with less e-waste produced from discarded mice.

Now, I already thought Logitech sells a "forever" mouse in the form of my beloved MX Master 3S, which you'll find plenty of people who have to work on a computer all day have bought. Honestly, the Master 3S is so essential to my productivity, that I'd pay twice the asking price, but please no one tell Logitech that!

Once you actually read what Faber said about a "Rolex" mouse with long-term paid software support, it doesn't seem as mad as the headlines make it out to be, but the optics of this are still pretty poor. No one likes it when a company makes its planned obsolescence so obvious. It actually feels a little vulgar in a way. We all know our gear isn't built to last, but having it highlighted feels gross.

Phone Hardware Loses Support Too Soon

However, the whole proposition of a forever mouse got me thinking—what other product would this actually work for?

For me, the obvious answer is "smartphones." Even mid-range phones are now so well-built and over-specced that they should remain usable and relevant for many, many years. Unless you physically break your phone, it will keep working just fine. Even a worn-out battery isn't much of an impediment. Most modern flagship phones can get a new official battery for around the $100 mark. Definitely worth it for a $1000 or even a $500 phone that's otherwise in good condition.

The main reason we have to give up our phones is simply due to a lack of software support. Apple has been the least worst company in this regard, with iPhones often getting support up to six years after their debut, and Samsung has been committing to longer support cycles too, but for most handsets, you can bargain on around two years of OS updates and perhaps a year or two more for security updates. After that, you might run into apps no longer working because they need newer OS versions, or security vulnerabilities that don't get patched. A serious issue for a device filled with your most personal info!

A “Forever Phone” Subscription Makes Way More Sense

If I bought an expensive phone, and could extend its software support cycle significantly by paying a few dollars a month, that's something that would interest me for sure. Heck, there doesn't even have to be a subscription, just charge me for software updates past the included support cycle. The main reasons Android phones tend to get relatively short support cycles is that there are too many models in each company's range, and not enough money and resources to justify continued support.

Apple has relatively few models of phone to support (and they wholly control the operating system), so the numbers are different for them, but on the Android side of the equation it's understandable (if vexing) that good phone hardware might become unusable due to a lack of software support resources.

多くのテクノロジー企業が陳腐化防止サブスクリプションを利用できる可能性があります

長期にわたって有料のソフトウェア アップデートを提供するオプションから恩恵を受ける可能性があるのはスマートフォンだけではありません。スマート TV やその他の「スマート」家電など、人々が 10 年以上使用することが予想される耐久性のあるアイテムは、間違いなく、より多くのサポートの恩恵を受けるものと見なされます。サーモスタット、テレビ、冷蔵庫、掃除機、その他の同様の機器を、もう使わなくなるからといって捨て始めるのはひどいことです。さらに悪いことに、中古品として再販することで寿命を延ばすことも不可能になります。たとえば、特定のスピーカー会社では、ハードウェア アップグレードの割引を受けるために、顧客が完全に機能するスマート スピーカーを「ブリック」することを要求しています。

タブレット、携帯電話、ミッドレンジのラップトップなどのデバイスは、世代が大きく飛躍した初期の頃よりもはるかに長く関連性を維持しており、テクノロジー カテゴリの多くは以前ほど急速に進歩していません。 4年経った今でも、M1 MacBook Airを買い換えなければならないというプレッシャーはまったく感じていない。最近iPadを買い換える主な理由は、車でiPadを運転してしまったからだ。したがって、ハードウェアを維持し、数年後には代わりにソフトウェアを最新の状態に保つために料金を支払います。

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