- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18112704
During a recent episode of The Verge’s Decoder podcast, Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber shed some possible insight into the company’s view on one of its most important products. Saying that “the mouse built this house,” Faber shares the planning behind a Forever Mouse, a premium product that the company hopes will be the last you ever have to buy. There’s also a discussion about a subscription-based service and a deeper focus on AI.
For now, details on a Forever Mouse are thin, but you better believe there will be a catch. The Instant Pot was a product so good that customers rarely needed to buy another one. The company went bankrupt.
And what exactly is innovative about that? They’re trying to replicate a Model M. A keyboard older than most keyboard users.
Mechanical keyboards are gimmicks, nothing more.
Exactly.
And they sell like hot cakes and are a sustainable market segment full of boutique houses and specialty retailers.
You can absolutely substitute luxury and design for feature innovation in tech accessories and make money.
This is a niche. Logitech doesn’t make its billions in revenue selling a handful of specialty keyboards. And that trend will subside soon, too.
Logitech makes money by selling hundreds of millions of generic mice, keyboards, webcams, etc. That’s where the money is. And if these devices don’t break, why buy new ones? A 20 years old usb mouse is still perfectly usable (I’m using one right now), that’s not good for business. So either you have to cater to fads like mechanical keyboards, which don’t really add anything, or sell crap like subscriptions.