I think now is a great time to remind everyone, like sync's developer, Lemmy's developers need to be paid too! The amount of time all the devs put into making lemmy exist, in my opinion, should be worth some of your money. If you can afford it, donating to the people who develop lemmy and/or the people keeping your home instance up will accelerate the incredible growth of lemmy!
That's how things should work honestly. Those that can chip in, should. A beer every so often goes a long way. It's honestly something I barely notice in my finances too. This time it goes to something I believe in instead of a twitch sub lol.
Yep! The developer of Connect for Lemmy is getting caffeinated on a regular basis by me. It's a perfect fit for the RIF gap in my heart. ;)
He/She(?) is doing an awesome job and it's amazing how far this app has come in just a few short weeks. I am trying to keep the dev motivated as much as possible, for sure!
My only gripe is that it's not open source, but that is OK.
I'm sure that everyone who was raging at Sync over the last few days, stating that all software should be FOSS have all made significant contributions to the Lemmy devs.
FOSS is pretty bloody great, and one of the greatest things about the modern IT industry. But FOSS doesn't pay a mortgage.
To be clear: I have contributed to Lemmy, and will likely pay a lifetime fee for Sync sooner or later.
I installed Sync, threw $16 LJ's way for putting in the work to convert it to work with Lemmy, and then uninstalled lol (commenting from Thunder). I plan on continuing to use FOSS clients for Fediverse stuff, but am happy there's a healthy variety of open and closed source clients for everyone to pick and choose from.
The rabid "it should be free" crowd here acts like we live in a post scarcity utopia where everything is roses and they deserve whatever they like on demand. The majority of users on this site wouldn't give a penny to help save their instance from dying.
Reality is that FOSS is basically never given donations (donate to your instance hosts people) and relying on donations is a guarantee that you'll run a charity at a loss.
Software development is hard work that only a small group of people know how to do (for now: I still hope it's like 50% of the population in the future but...) And to make independent software full time is a risky endeavor.
You'd have to be off your fucking gord to make FOSS software full time and expect to stay above the poverty line.
Good on you for supporting Sync and Lemmy. I do the same and plan to continue doing so... Cause I want the bad place to Digg it's own grave with their greed. But that'll only happen if we're crowd funding our FOSS.
I left because of how reddit treated the 3rd part app Devs, suddenly forcing them to cancel subscriptions halfway through the year. (They could have given the Devs a heads up, but chose not to.) I left because of the libel that was being spread about a dev. For me, it wasn't that they wanted to charge money to use reddit, it's how they went about it that made me leave and not return.
Of course, they also forgot about blind people and moderating tools. They then kicked many mods for voicing their opinion and/or participating the blackout, even if the subreddit in question was in agreement with them.
I don't see Sync doing any of that, so please speak for yourself on why the migration happened.
Y'all just seething bc others are enjoying things. This is just cringe. This is not a zero sum game. You can donate to lemmy devs/instance devs/fav. app devs and whatever else you like too.
And let's not pretend this is new. You could see a lot of memmy users being excited about their app too. I don't know what the hell they are talking about. But I'm glad they have an app they like that much.
i dont think theres anything wrong with sync enjoyers loving their app but i have to agree that the iap money would be better spent on actually keeping instances alive
This is such a bad take. By the same logic, the time you spend scrolling through Lemmy would have been better spent serving the homeless in the soup kitchen or sweeping the streets clean. But yet here you are. Why?
Let's face it, the "IAP money" you referred to has always been there, Sync dev found a way (and has the balls) to monetize his work to a pretty big extent. And only now are you all sour grapes about it. If Lemmy instances are so desperate for money why didn't they make an equally big effort to monetize? On the flip side, if money isn't such a big issue why do you care if Sync is monetizing?
It's not either or. But I have now stopped donating because y'all can't get off this topic.
Hate the super-rich, not people with enough money left over at the month that they can afford a nicer way to interact with lemmy as intended - ad free.
That the server needs people with extra cash to support it is exceedingly valid. That's why I had been donating until literally 10 minutes ago.
I'm not subsidizing people who feel entitled to:
Free shit
Using free shit to tell others how they should spend
(Acting like my money is theirs)
It's a simple boundaries issue that so many on Lemmy don't seem to comprehend.
When I stopped my donation, there was "other" then a box to say why. I filled it in. It's just one donation that stopped, but who knows, there could be more.
You're absolutely correct. Anyone can enjoy any app they like and either pay for it or not.
But coming into a thread about ways to ensure Lemmy gets the support it needs to develop and instances get the support they need to keep going to tell everyone how much you love your app is infantile.
Sync dev wanting something worth for the all the work they're doing is fine imo. You can tell he put a lot of effort into the app.
The sync cult however seem to be as annoying as they were on reddit. They are like this when we discuss anything about sync's pricing even on non sync communities.
"I'm so happy I can buy sync again"
"Sync is the best"
"No other 3PA can compare to it in my experience"
This is one of the few times I feel like "nobody asked" applies.
Personally I find both sides a bit grating, but moreso the anti-Sync crowd lol.
I used Sync for Reddit and paid for lifetime, but after a while I found that I liked Infinity better, so I switched. I'm now using Infinity for Lemmy and probably won't use Sync for Lemmy, but people who are using Sync (and paid for it)? Good for them. No need to tell them, "Haha you're a sucker for paying for something when there are free alternatives!!", you lose absolutely nothing by other people using Sync or other proprietary apps.
Damn these people being happy their favorite app is on Lemmy.
Seriously why do you care ?
Also, the reality is not that the sync cult is too vocal it's that they represent a solid chunk of the overall user base.
And also the fact that on Lemmy there is not much content as of now so minor things can become events.
I'm a bit salty about sync's pricing especially because I already bought the ads removal when sync was on reddit. And I feel like this is not a new code base so I should at least get a minor discount.
There are all kinds of sync users, stop oversimplifying things and spreading stereotypes. Just let people enjoy their few days of being happy they can browse Lemmy in their comfort zone.
The sync cult however seem to be as annoying as they were on reddit.
This is very weird for me because I was very active on reddit for many years and was subscribed to the android and sync subreddits. Barely ever seen any comments or posts about sync.
If you had a lot of interaction about sync on reddit, I have to believe it's because you were looking for that type of content. Or maybe you had a very narrow selection of subreddits. I don't know.
Not the person you were replying to but it does get a bit much when a thread isn't about Sync - like this one for example, which is trying to draw attention to funding Lemmy development and instance sustainability - and then it gets hit with people talking about how much they love Sync and they're happy to pay for it.
Hmm, I'm not sure how much I actually do. It's mostly these posts coming to my feed automatically and this is like the main lemmy topic today.
The sync cult however seem to be as annoying as they were on reddit.
This is very weird for me because I was very active on reddit for many years and was subscribed to the android and sync subreddits. Barely ever seen any comments or posts about sync.
Hmm, maybe I shouldn't actually have called them a cult after thinking through more. But I do find some of what they do annoying like what I mentioned before.
If you had a lot of interaction about sync on reddit, I have to believe it's because you were looking for that type of content. Or maybe you had a very narrow selection of subreddits. I don't know.
Sync was mostly drama free but there were two things I noticed on reddit.
Sometimes when free version users come to troubleshoot an issue, premium users would try to convince them to buy the pro version to support the developer without offering a solution(most likely because they can't offer a solution). I was in many different third party apps and this was absurd to me. I don't recall seeing anything like this in any of the other third party app subreddits. A reason behind this might be the large userbase. Sync has a much larger userbase than most third party android apps. Also, sync dev and the moderators were chill. It was just comments from random users.
The developer once released a major update which many old time users didn't like. They raged to the point that the sync dev took a pretty long break to the point people were wondering if sync was abandoned or not. Even his own moderators lost contact with him. I wasn't even subscribed to the sync subreddit when this happened and l learned of it like a few weeks or maybe a month or two later from I think r/androidapps or a similar subreddit where people were discussing their favourite third party apps.
So, nope. Sync isn't drama free completely and my selection of subreddits definitely weren't narrow(I had to make multiple custom feeds at the end).
I want to add again that I'm satisfied with the sync dev's work and decision. It's not wrong to want to profit from your work.
I'm a bit salty about sync's pricing especially because I already bought the ads removal when sync was on reddit. And I feel like this is not a new code base so I should at least get a minor discount.
I am in the similar boat. I feel that I left reddit in solidarity with the 3rd party app developers. And, I was expecting the price to reflect some discount for the people who left in solidarity.
I also feel that ad removal is a in principle as most people on lemmy would be using tools to already block ads. I am willing to pay, but I am hardly inconvenienced by the ads.
And right there is the problem. I bought sync for reddit so why should I have to pay for lemmy. I mean the developer had to do work to rewrite for the lemmy api.
No. But here we are. Reading about the "sync cult" whatever that is.
So.. Let's extend that courtesy to everyone, all right?
Because a "nobody asked about your opinion" stance is a sure fire way to end any discussion platform. Like lemmy.
What I do think that Mr. Dawson should do is direct a percentage of that sweet sync income at lemmy.world and the lemmy devs.
That would end or at least lessen this discussion.
I'd normally agree. I don't really like when someone responds with "nobody asked" to me or someone else.
But I really don't think a comment such as "I'm glad I can buy sync again" is appropriate for posts such as this. OP came to remind us to donate to lemmy devs as one of the main topics of lemmy is about sync now. The OP and the users who clicked this post didn't come to see comments like those from those specific sync users.
As for calling them a cult, I apologize for that.
Again, I also agree "nobody asked" isn't really a healthy way to proceed but those comments really do feel irrelevant. I have no idea what their purpose is here.
I don't subscribe as a rule these days.Subscription fatigue is a real thing but I do make one time payments to regularly used services or apps across the year. I guess it's like tipping in that respect, I do it when I feel I should.
For Sync, the subscription seemed steep for an app for a platform I'm still only starting to use and don't use anywhere near Reddit levels (by design I might add) plus the one time payment seems similarly steep. I bought the pro for Reddit about 2 years before Reddit went full ham and was ready to spend the £8 of Google credit I have on it again if it turned out I used it/lemmy more than I do.
The issue I found is that feeding that back on anything like this hit the cult wall and you just get a lot of angry posting about you being cheap or just use the ads etc. Hell, you can see the same posts even in this thread which is only tangentially related to that whole quagmire. I had hoped that lemmy would be less vitriolic and more discussion based even on these kinds of things but I guess people are just tribalistic regardless.
I agree that subscription fatigue is a huge thing, and I avoid services as a rule of thumb unless there are real reasons for the subscription, ie ongoing usage based costs.
That said, I view $2 a month as a reasonable subscription cost, and if Reddit had charged that I would have happily paid it to keep bacon reader. It's only the one time payment cost that is very steep ($99).
I chip in $5/mo for lemmy.world to help pay to keep it ad free and running
Yeah i think cult mentality is the problem. If someone doesn't want to pay or cannot pay, it's their choice/circumstances. If they don't like sync's pricing and wanna stick to FOSS apps, it's their choice. I don't like to see people pushing around others for their choice of what they think is the best.
Sync users are annoyed getting blasted with FOSS this and that. Other client users do not need to ridicule Sync fans.
Or behave like houlier than thou and teach Sync users how to spend rheir money.
It does, but only as a contrast to point out that others in the ecosystem also deserve support. OP's post is literally a reminder that, without devs and hosts, Sync would have no reason to exist. It's about the devs and hosts.
The difference is that some users have been using sync for a decade and using Lemmy for only a month. So it's a lot easier to mentally justify supporting a developer who you've been benefiting from for so long.
I have also donated to my local instance, I really hope to see it all grow together.
The 100$ is very much a premium tier with nice to have features. The ad free version is around 20$, which is still steep but you're paying for lifetime ads.
Personally, I think the app is absolutely fine without paying for the subscription. I really don't see too many ads. I get an average of one ad for every two refreshes of the feed when scrolling through, and none of them have been obtrusive. It's certainly night and day when compared to the ads in the official Reddit app.
I mean it's just a port of the Reddit version that was made by the same dev and had been around for over a decade (with constant updates and improvements), I don't think enshittification is a given.
Depends on if their business model works. If enough people are paying for premium and using the free version of the app to pay for development, there is no reason for them to increase the amount of ads. In fact, if they do show too many ads, it will likely push a lot of users to alternate apps.
Same. I have a PiHole on my home network and it blocks the ads in Sync. I still see the empty box where the ad would be though. If I am out of the house the only way I can get that ad blocking back is by connecting to my home VPN server.
This is my biggest problem with it. I have no issue with Sync charging. I have an issue with Sync charging and not passing anything on to the developers of Lemmy.
There's nothing wrong with charging for API access if the price is reasonable. Reddit was intentionally unreasonable to kill off 3rd party traffic. In 2022, the avg reddit user brought in $0.72 USD per year. If they charged just $1/yr, they'd increase their profit!
It is. The Lemmy instance owners and the devs aren't even making a dime off the platform.
That said, the decision to pay is still ultimately up to the user. If you feel it's too pricey, then there's Liftoff, which is a perfectly fine app in itself. Others are okay with it or even better if regional pricing is launched.
I'm currently running infinity, seems OK... There's still a handful of features I'd like.
I am definitely not going to run Sync with adverts and I'm not paying the amount they're asking, neither am I going to go with subscription based.
If sync halved their ad free version, I'd probably pull the trigger - failing that, I'll eventually just hack up their client and remove the ads myself.
Exorbitant is the right word. A subscription model for a UI enhancement app is pretty ridiculous no matter what the price. Likewise, $20 to remove ads is absurd. A much more reasonable approach would be to charge upgrade fees to pay the dev for continued development as Lemmy evolves.
By contrast Tasker, an app that provides serious Android customization & script capabilities that enable users to enhance their entire Android experience, costs just $3.50.
As a long time Sync for Reddit user I planned to buy the Sync for Lemmy app but noped on out of there when I saw the pricing.
IMO the dev is trying to quickly replace his lost Sync for Reddit revenue before the Lemmy user base has grown enough to make that possible with reasonable pricing. Good for him that many of you are willing to pay what he's asking, but I'll be sticking with some of the other excellent apps available right now.
It's like email, I have yahoo, you have gmail, your grandma has aol. Each is their "home" instance but they can all talk to each other. They're not in a walled garden and can only talk to themselves like whatsapp or reddit or twitter etc. Fediverse is an open platform and lemmy is a reddit-like part of it. Mastodon is a twitter-like part of it. Sync does do a great job, no need to make head go ouchie.
Ended up using opencollective as well because of Paypal. But using credit card seems to have a bit lower fee than Paypal. Maybe I'll use that for the next donation.
It's also possible to use the free version and just deal with ads. If you want lemmy to thrive, then sync is exactly the sort of thing we need (it's the only reason I'm here after the final death of RIF)
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it threw me off how short the donation list over $10 is and how many people donate on Patreon (obviously not the only way to donate). Thanks for the donation information!
Because people are cheap and don't like paying for online stuff. Then they complain about ads. How do people think this stuff works fairy dust and unicorn farts.
I don't think it's fair to call people cheap when I'm constantly seeing stuff about how much people are struggling financially. If people had more money to spare they'd care less about throwing it at random things.
I dunno, paying less than $10 is more than enough, definitely more than you could make from ads per person. And the reality is that not many people can afford to throw $10+ on every single online service.
If anything, it might be doable if you could pay, say, $50 and distribute that between everything based on your usage. But then service providers don't really want that either, they'd rather take all that just for themselves than share with others.
I haven't looked too deeply into the financing (recent migrant from Reddit). But would like to find out more.
Is Lemmy / Fediverse run like the Wikimedia Foundation?
Is current financing supporting the paid work and growth of servers etc?
What is considered a fair regular donation? Should I donate to Iemmy.org and the instance I have joined - lemmy.world? I would be happy to know what others here are contributing.
Is it true that purchases from sync for reddit don't carry over to sync for lemmy? I don't know how anyone could possibly justify a lifetime purchase if so.
They literally are making a new app that, sure, has a very similar look and feel but its for a completely different platform. Sure, it probably shares UI code, but I'm sure a lot of the code to pull from reddit had to be scrapped. I think they deserve to be compensated for their effort and giving any one the app just because they paid for a different app woyls not be compensarion for their efforts. They have to get paid so they can live just like you and me.
When you buy something you do not have to think whether the developer deserves it or not, especially for software where producing more copies is free. You decide whether it is worth it for you.
When you donate, you think about whether someone deserves it and who deserves your money most.
I mean, that's a problem with a "lifetime" purchase of anything, especially software.
But as long as your expected usage over your expected period of time is cheaper than a recurring subscription for the same period of time, it's still worth it for a "lifetime" purchase.
For me, the fuss, in this thread is about Sync users inexplicable need to jump into a thread about supporting Lemmy development and keeping instances afloat with comments about how much they love Sync.
That was my bigger issue along with the GDPR compliance. The dev has said that clicking do not consent turns off consent but we've all see sites and apps where "legitimate interest" is skipped when you remove consent. That and the data that's collected seems a bit opaque. Now, I know these types of advertising platforms are often drop in solutions so it's possible the Dev just doesn't know that side. That being said they should be aware of these things when on a heavily FOSS skewed platform like this. The Dev seems responsive so I imagine this will all be smoothed out in future.
The story is basically that it's a really nice looking app, but $20 to remove the ads is a little steep comparatively. They also have subscription options which rub me the wrong way. Those are just my opinions though. If it was the only app available I would probably be much more vocal but the fact is there are dozens of other apps and more in development so it's not that big of a deal.
And if you want to do both: my instance is a commercial one, part of the suite of services that provided by Communick. I'm pledging to give 20% of any eventual profits to the teams of the projects that I host there.
With all the talk about the big instances not managing to keep up with the influx of users, I'd ask you to consider joining or spreading the word about my work and what I am proposing as alternative model for a sustainable growth of the Fediverse.
I'm disabled and on a fixed income. I make less than minimum wage. The only thing I have to contribute are my occasional keen thoughts, but if you need me to leave, I can. I get that a lot.
I won't be buying or using Sync, as its pricing is prohibitive and ads sometimes include malware.
but if you need me to leave, I can. I get that a lot.
I don't think OP is suggesting this. It's simply a reminder to those who have the privilege of having extra income that contributing to the core devs improves the experience for everyone, regardless of their individual ability to contribute.
I'm personally happy to donate if it means everyone gets to continue enjoying the growth of the platform, as the real value of the threadiverse is user activity.
While I'm all for using an ad-blocker, I don't think you have to worry too much about Google Ads containing malware, particularly if you don't click through.
AFAIK Google has pretty strict restrictions around the type and format of ads they will push and ad campaigns have to get approval before being activated.
So while I do strongly feel that everyone should be using an ad-blocker, I don't think malicious ads are of particular concern coming from Google's ad platform, on an android device.
I'm not English native and I often see Google ads in my language. Many of them are of very low quality and some ads connect to phishing links, weird apps or cover contents. I don't think Google strictly restrict them..
My question is, why are people waiting until now to say you can donate to Lemmy devs? I haven't seen it discussed at all, anywhere, until someone released an app where they're asking for optional payments
If the sync dev would be fair and not greedy, he would give at least the 2/3 of his revenues from the app to the Lemmy devs and the instances. Otherwise, I guess instances should be able to block these apps.
I understand everyone need to earn something. And keeping max 1/3 is good.
People need to understand and in priority the people coming from Reddit that Lemmy is not reddit. Reddit earns money with ads and investors. They could inject ads through the APIs and states in the usage terms that 3rd party devs could not remove them. They didn't do it.
Lemmy is a complet other story. Lemmy rely on donations. So, when someone donates to the Lemmy devs and/or instances, the dev of a paid app is making money on this donation. Without the Lemmy devs and the instances, the paid app would not exist at all. It's not fair at all to not share the revenue of these apps.
These paid apps and their devs are at best predators and at least parasitics.
This whole comment is ridiculous. People are happy to pay for a better experience (for them). You can do/say whatever you want. So can I. So can he. Things in the world aren't free. There is a continual narrative that everything should be FOSS. In a perfect world: sure. In our world we need money to live.
I'm happy to pay for the ad free version of sync. And happy that the profits go to the app maker to do whatever he wants.
Making up fractions like 1/3 is useless and arbitrary at best. You have no idea how much he makes or even what 1/3 would mean.
Edit: If instances block these apps, it defeats the purpose of an open fediverse. .. also sounds just like reddit.
Did I write that? I explicitly wrote he can keep 1/3. It doesn't make it free at all, knowing the other 2/3 going to the Lemmy devs and instances. Nothing is free in this model. It's about the fairness.
1/3 isn't arbitrary. You have 3 parties here, the app dev, the lemmy devs and the lemmy instances. The first relies entirely on the second and the third, who are in a donation model. Without these two, the first is at best useless, therefore giving 2/3 to the other parties is fine. Cutting the revenues of the app in 3 for each party is fair.
If I understand right, the lemmy devs are already paid to develop lemmy full time. I don't fully understand the arrangements or who's paying them though.
"Lemmy is entirely open source and funded exclusively by donations. The maintainers dessalines and nutomic have been working on it full time for the past years thanks to generous support by the NLnet foundation. Now that this support is coming to an end, the project is increasingly relying on donations from individual users to fund development. Your donation allows the developers to fully focus on making Lemmy better for everyone."
Why did NLnet sponsor the development for years, and now when Lemmy is successful, they stop sponsoring it?
What was the goal of the sponsorship?
The https://nlnet.nl/project/Lemmy/ link goes on about how the internet is preditory today and big tech exploits users, and then at the end:
Lemmy is an open source tool that helps users discover what the fediverse has to offer as a decentralized alternative to for example Reddit. Everyone can host their own instance of Lemmy, determine their own moderation policy to keep discussion as civil as you would like and let users share, post, vote and interact without any corporate interference, all from the comfort of their server of choice. Search and discovery on the fediverse becomes easier, more fun and social, without forgoing independence and agency.
You may have misunderstood, I was saying along with supporting the sync dev, the backend that powers sync was made by very different developers. Their work powers lemmy as a whole. If you can, you can support them by donating using this link: join-lemmy.org/donate
Calling it fraud and stealing money is uncool. People aren't being forced to use the app or pay for the subscription. Let people spend their own money however they see fit.