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)
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.
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...
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.)
This is why I've never needed to buy one of those $1 mice (some of which are very high-end). I have my own box full of them.
Although I shouldn't say "never". I have a box full of keyboards, too, but needed a real PS/2 keyboard recently and discovered that I didn't save any from the last time I did an equipment purge. So I had to buy one from the reseller (which was where I donated my old ones to begin with. It's not impossible that I bought a keyboard I gave to them!)
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.