A click of a button and... Nothing?

I have a mouse problem. No, not real live mice. Those are under control; Mickey and Minnie and Morty and Ferdie are a fine family, happily living in my garage feasting on whatever it is they feast on and cavorting, no doubt , with the Dust Bunny family. No, the mouse problem I have is with the ones associated with computers. Specifically, it's a button problem. The left button, to be exact. I break them.

After 10 months of use, the left button gets a bit wacky. Pressing it may get any of three results: no response, a momentary response, or a phantom double-click.  Every mouse I have had in the last 10 years has done this. Wired or wireless, cheap or expensive... it doesn't matter. About the same time after initial installation, the left button gets... undependable.

I tried taking one or two apart and cleaning the switch but it didn't have any effect. It's the electronics, I think. And I suspect the button switch is made by some Chinese kid toiling away in a factory in WaeFahOut, China for a dollar a day. And he makes all of the button switches for all of the computer mice regardless of brand name. Bought in bulk, they cost mouse makers about .001 cents per button and, in my hands, disable any mouse costing from $5 to $39 bucks within a year.

In the old days when mice did not have lasers and our eyes were not at risk, you had to clean the little mouse's ball from time to time. The instructions were readily available and the mouse usually performed quite well once this was done. This was never a big problem for me. But that button thing? Oh yeah... big issue. I have swapped buttons (via software) now and then to extend the life of a mouse but it was a pain because I could not easily retrain my fingers to conform.

So I now tend to buy the cheap as possible mice and initially in pairs so I have a backup.