[craigds]

Who's throwing away mouses? They last at least a decade, likely two. And for most people there's no software involved (that isn't installed and handled by the builtin drivers in their OS)

[al_borland]

I’ve gone through a few at work. I recently got a new mouse, because I was having issues with it seemingly like the mouse button was being stuck down… but not exactly. The new mouse was more of a troubleshooting step and things got significantly better, so I kept it and the old one is trash.

I had stuff like this happen o a few mice where they just seem worn out after a while.

And of course there was one that I slammed on my desk in frustration over something and broke it. Oops.

[Ekaros]

Having had bad luck with Razer... The switches inevitably develop double click behaviour... And lot of surface coatings wear away. Now my latest BenQ Zowie Celeritas has not had any of those issues for years...

Sometimes quality is just crap.

[jacknews]

The ones that last a decade or two were made a decade or two ago. Modern mice seem to reliably break in a couple of years or less.

[tocs3]

People throw way entire computers. I have also seen people throw away any number of things for all sorts of reasons.

[JohnFen]

Judging by the large bin of them (for sale at $1 each) at my local electronics reseller, it seems that a lot do.

[5555624]

Most new computers with a new keyboard and mouse. Most people don't need a second one. (And the HN crowd probably has a lot of users with KVM switches.)

[fuzzfactor]

OTOH there are car owners who are avid motorists to a degree who enthusiastically support Rent-a-Tire.

If you're just going to dispose of them in the long run, why would you want to "own" one anyway?