I don’t understand the hate for charging for a product. I pay for a Mastodon client. If a Lemmy client that I really liked cost money and I felt the price was reasonable, I’d support that developer, too.
Mlem is SwiftUI and FOSS! I know there are some issues with the current App Store build (weeps in janky scrolling) but we've got a major update hitting beta tomorrow and the App Store as soon as Apple will allow that's going to fix it.
Lemmy instances run on servers which are funded by donations. I don't see how Sync (which is made by one developer) gets to be frowned upon because there's a price for ad removal.
All FOSS projects are somehow funded, usually by donations. Nothing runs for free.
If we get to use all the FOSS Lemmy apps is because someone put in the time and money to make it happen.
I would happily pay for any FOSS app that I use, even for higher price than proprietary ones. I personally would prefer to use a FOSS app, if the UX is somewhat on par with the proprietary ones.
That being said, no judgement to people who prefer proprietary app. We all have different priorities, hence have to make different tradeoffs.
Many of us happily pay add removal fees on apps, but few of us pay $20. It stands out as excessive, especially in a very competitive arena like Lemmy apps where lots of good options have emerged.
Oh yeah? What Mastodon client? I've just been using the 1st party client and I feel like it's pretty decent. Kinda curious how much better a client might be.
Nothing wrong at all with charging for the main version to support development as long as it's not gouging. I don't think this is gouging in the slightest.
I don't think price gouging is even possible unless you control most or all of whatever resource. Sync is one of many apps to access Lemmy, and it isn't forcing anyone to pay or even use it.
To build on what other people are saying, the $100 also is supposed to cover the cost of running servers and networks that the app has to use for the more unique, advanced features. Those are all things that will cost the developer to keep up and running - it's honestly nice that you even have the option to pay for lifetime since, once you've used the app for six years, the dev is going to start losing money off of your using the app.
Many Americans (I'm one) cling to a variety of purity tests, and they struggle to grasp the bigger picture which could result in better outcomes for everyone.
Black or white. Win or lose. It's a tiring cultural characteristic.
It's not the charge money part. It's that it charges money and then still grabs and sells toms of your data. That's something the Lemmy crowd is super opposed to even in free products, but a subscription to have your data sold when the service itself (Lemmy) is hosted on a donation basis and does not cost the devs a cent to use is too much.
Most of that opposition is directed at the Sync devs of course, not against some user who has made the decision that the proposal is good and decided to use Sync.
Oh no $20 to remove ads from an app that was made by one guy as his full time job. I'm proud to support anyone who works hard to make a more accessible, more enjoyable experience.
Oh no ads track you!
My full time job is literally managing Google ads.
We barely tracked you personally as it was. We could anonymously target generally the things you were interested in buying or what you've recently been looking at online.
And then Google crippled Google Analytics and it's a shell of what it once was, and your data is even more anonymous!
If I work for a lawnmower company I couldn't give a shit who you are or what you do online, all I care about is if you're thinking about buying a lawnmower, so my client can show you what he's got to offer. Then you can ignore the ads if you don't like the product or its price point. That's what Google does.
I'd rather that than be shown "Generic Chinese cashgrab mobile game ad that doesn't actually reflect the gameplay" ads.
The guy worked hard to make possibly the best UI/UX on the platform. Either pay for his work or let him get the (barely any) money from showing ads to pay for his time. Either way, he worked for it.
I don't think most people worry about lawnmowing company. They worry about Google.
What google essentially sale is manipulation: they make money by changine your behavior, which is a extermely dangerous business in a democratic society. What makes it even more dangerous are
It is a for-profit company, which means people with more money have more power to manipulate the general public
It caters to U.S. government (since it is based in the U.S.), which is one of the most imperialistic governments today, with a terrible record of over-surveillance.
Everything can be hacked, all the information that is stored will be leaked sooner or later. And these data can easily fall into the wrong hand; in fact, they tends to fall into the wrong hand.
That's all perfectly sensible things to be concerned about. But given that we're talking about an android app - if you're eligible to use the app, Google almost certainly already has all your data anyways.
Yeah I'm sure there's a tiny subsection of the people in these discussion who have custom ROMs flashed, but the vast majority are posting about Google tracking them on a google phone - or (even more annoyingly) posting about it from a phone that doesn't even support the app, and so doesn't remotely affect them
There are companies that aggregate all the data from Google and other services to match your anonymous data to your actual person so they can match your address name and all personal information to what you do online
@ZippyZiggurat@drekly, it's called create incommings by surveillance advertising, I call it Spyware as is.
They sell your data to third parties, which apart of a violation of your privacy rights, is a big security risk, nobody can control how your data is traty and protected, several cases of dataleaks with even bank and medical data prove this. There are other methodes to create incommings which don't invade privacy.
The ads are what supports the developer. $20 to remove them is just a better bulk upfront deal than waiting for fractions of pennies to come together over time. The $100 version is a straight up grift though. I cannot overstate this, the ads are what supports the dev. There is nobody here not getting paid for their work.
I might be wrong, but the $99 one is for people who want to be a moderator of instances. I just want to doomscroll while taking a shit. So I kicked him $20. I think I paid the same amount for the reddit version, so 🤷
Yeah nah fuck that Sync hate, I don't use it personally but if someone wants to use it, all the best to them and have a jolly ride in the lemmy part of the fediverse
I used many Lemmy Android clients and after trying out Sync it is so good. It is not FOSS but it is high quality. Other FOSS apps are not mature enough yet and are unestable. I hope one day a FOSS one can compete and have high quality and I will switch
Perfect response. I not usually one who is made fun of for being bougie, but why not pay for an app that I've used for nearly a decade and can easily afford?
Actually I'd invite the FOSS developers to learn from UI of sync. If they get better, I'll switch to FOSS apps, I'd contribute to FOSS if I had the time, but I don't and their UI does feel unpolished. Used liftoff and jerboa before sync.
It's cool to hate it, for a lot of people who moved to fediverse early, it's a matter of FOSS software and an ideology. Everyone has a flexing point in their ideology, early adopters of fediverse can't be flexible at closed source products. I personally draw my flexing boundary at large capitalist companies. Sync is developed by one guy and tbh with a way pretty UI than any of the FOSS software has (my personal opinion) so I like it. And I use it. But I understand the ideological point of FOSS everything, but I don't understand people who want FOSS everything but they contribute nothing.
I understand why people want to use FOSS, but I don't understand being annoyed that a non FOSS project costs money. It doesn't take away your choice and only adds more choice and gives FOSS devs a target to make their apps better. I only see upsides to having more choices of clients. This isn't some huge mega corporations trying to monopolize on a platform, it's a small solo dev that's making a client for a platform with an open standard that cannot be closed off by design. There's no downside to having more competition. It's not like sync will put the FOSS options out of business since they're free hobby projects to begin with.
Once I was exactly like you described: "people who want FOSS everything but they contribute nothing". Indeed, it was really bothering me to not contribute anything, but the reason was I didn't have much confidence about my skills. I slowly break that barrier of lacking confidence.
If there are people out there like who I was, please just go and commit anything on any project, whatever it is, doesn't matter.
I don't hate it. What rubs me the wrong way is the $20 ask to remove ads, when alternative apps exists that don't charge or even have ads yet. It feels far too steep for what it's designed to handle, compared to Reddit. $5 would have been reasonable as an early bird deal, then $10 afterwards would have made more sense. Then add a tip jar for those who feel generous.
It's a bit of a catch-22 because while Lemmy and the Sync for Lemmy userbase is small the dev needs to ask for more to keep the lights on.
If there was a larger pool of users who might potentially subscribe then the dev wouldn't have to charge as much.
But from a user perspective it might seem like a smaller/newer platform like Lemmy doesn't justify a higher cost.
For me personally I am happy to pay it because I used and loved Sync for years on Reddit and having had the experience with creating a Reddit app the dev has been able to provide a more complete/polished interface for Lemmy than possibly any other app available right now.
As a sync user, I agree, $20 is a steep price for what lemmy is currently offering. If I'm sure I'm gonna staying on lemmy for years (like I did for reddit), im probably gonna pay. But only time will tell. But so far the als I've seen are really not that frequent or intrusive, and I'm just happy I have sync back tbh.
But it is $30 on my end to remove the ads on sync. I completely agree with you, and I had sync for years. I am currently using Jerboa, and it fits my needs.
What rubs me the wrong way is the $20 ask to remove ads
I would feel the same way if Sync was the one and only option to view Lemmy on mobile but it's not. You can use all the other FOSS apps which don't have ads.
By the way you can install a global adblocker on your phone to remove all (well, most let's say) ads across your device. I use one and don't see any ads on Sync, just a blank square.
I found out about Lemmy BECAUSE of Sync. I'm a huge FOSS supporter but that doesn't mean I'll trash anything that isn't open source.
Much more importantly, I'd really like to see Lemmy succeed against data mining trash like Reddit. Let's not dissuade potential converts coming over from Reddit with this gatekeeping nonsense. These manipulative parasitic social media companies are the real enemy here. Sync is one guy making one app with a one time purchase. Everyone is still welcome to use open source apps, the website or any other means of accessing the community.
Sync is not your enemy.
I had heard of lemmy in the days before the reddit blackout, but only when ljdawson said he was considering building sync for lemmy, did I actually join up.
I tried other clients before sync was actually out, and voyager is pretty good - but sync feels like home.
F that noise. I'm here and active because Sync came out, and I've become used to its interface over the years. I'll eventually try the other FLOSS apps but I'm here learning and enjoying first.
Yeah, op, don't feel shamed about using sync, it's a great app that's worth using. I use it. Lots of us use it. The hate is a knee-jerk reflex to the sudden influx of excited reddit sync users who have migrated to lemmy and talked a lot about sync. I think FOSS users were expecting a FOSS-type option and were shocked when that wasn't the case. Then you also had users who were just mad that it would cost more to be used here than it was on reddit.
Not precisely, they weren’t 1-for-1 clones. But when I moved from Android to iOS I was easily able to adapt to Apollo from Sync. Very similar visuals, very similar gestures, similar developer devotion.
Sync was not only my favorite app for reddit, but IMO the best UI/UX of any app I've ever used. I enjoyed Connect until Sync came out, but now that it has I feel like I can finally enjoy Lemmy as much as reddit. Everyone will have their preferences and prices they're willing to pay, but $20 absolutely seems reasonable to me for how much I use it lol.
I love FOSS but I too use Sync. Used it on Reddit for the better part of a decade and it's made Lemmy more accessible for me and also some friends.
In the end if people are happy to pay for a client, which then builds the membership of Lemmy communities - what's the big fucking deal? I'm very happy to be here and very happy to continue supporting a dev that does fantastic work.
Also using Sync. The thing is, I'm sick and tired of being told how I should need to interact with something. This isn't an argument against FOSS at all btw. I also pay a non-FOSS one-man-shop for my RSS reader.
My main thing is I want to bend the web to my preferences instead of the other way around. If devs like this are going out of their way to do that I'm going to make it worth their while.
Shit, I even pay the guy who keeps the Chumby servers alive. Just so I can have a flash-baswd Star Trek themed clock face active on my nightstand.
I would be super stoked if the creator of RiF created something for Lemmy. But to Sync's credit, I've been able to mess around a little with the settings and make my feed look like RiF in dark mode.
I won't hold my breath for RiF making a comeback (LiF??). However if it does, I'm all in. It was a really sad day when I had to say goodbye to it.
Same boat, I like FOSS, using linux for 20+ years yada yada android custom ROM hack stuff what not, but 10 years ago I tested all the reddit app, Sync was far superior so I bought it for like 3$. Now Sync for Lemmy is an impressive experience compared to Jerboa or Connect for instance, so I forked the 20$ for the noads version. Dev looks like a great guy, I have no problem with this.
For how much time I spent using Apollo, I really got a massive bargain for just $5.00. I’m not surprised that people would pay $20 if the app is good and they use Lemmy often.
The FOSS idealist fantasy land is just as cringe as all the "it's only $20" bootlicking loyalists. Just another dramatic console war, courtesy of a bored internet and slow news cycle
I was pissed about the yearly subscription, but $20 for life for an app that I will likely use for nearly a thousand hours per year really isn't too bad.
I don't see why people are so against the developer using ads. If you don't like them, you can remove them yourself with an adblocker, you don't need the dev to do that. If you consider ads an ethical violation, you shouldn't see using an adblocker as unethical.
I used to love Sync, but hear me out: Infinity is FOSS and it currently is much nicer and easier to use.
I'm grateful to the creator of Sync for bringing over the app to the Fediverse, and I'll never begrudge anyone for sticking with it or even paying an outrageous price to not have to see ads even though Lemmy has none to begin with. All I'm saying is, you just switched from Reddit to Lemmy, now's the perfect time to try something new.
I'm a long time Sync supporter and paid for ad-free Sync for Lemmy, but I can agree that Infinity is definitely a good competitor. I'm juggling them both right now, and they're both fantastic.
Infinity actually has the combo of features (settings) I want. I couldn't replicate my Joey (reddit app) in Sync so I tried Infinity and it's exactly what I was looking for
I am curious why you like about it. I was a Relay user, and it was the only one that was really good for me. I didn't care for sync, it seemed ok, but not quite good enough.
But after moving to Lemmy I went with Jerboa and Thunder. Both are good enough. What could sync possibly have that you pay for?
I know for relay I miss: auto mute. Everything is mute by default. Then slow and fastforward for all media, and a download button.
not OP, but the main selling point of Sync is an absolutely top notch buttery smooth and good-looking UI, adhering to Google's Material Design.
it looks and feels like a Google-made app, only it's made for nerds, so it's more configurable and maybe a bit bolder in terms of innovation.
in geneal this means: no loose ends, no jarring or lazy design, no janky transitions, and focus on ease of use (configurable gestures, bottom screen nav, presets, clever set-up tour, well thought out settings...).
of course you'll always find this one niche feature that someone Absolutely Needs which it doesn't have... and that's ok. can't have them all. but it covers 90 % of the bases and in terms of polish, you'd be hard pressed to find better. incl. Apollo, in my opinion (though it was some years ago that i used it).
It is comments and posts! How much buttery smooth do I need for that? I cannot really tell the difference at all between it and what I am using now. I tried it and was very underwhelmed.
Sync is the only 3rd party app I have ever used that actually has fantastic material you design. I have a pixel phone and quite like material you look. I prefer all my apps support this superior look, other apps try but none get anywhere close to that amount of polish Sync has.
TLDR: Sync is fucking gorgeous and no alternatives come close to being as sexy
It's weird how upset people are getting over memes about sync. It's a shame because the memes are pretty funny.
None of the FOSS advocates actually care that you use Sync unless they're going to your house and uninstalling it when your not looking.
And there's a lot of misconceptions about free software. Free Software is opposed to proprietary software, not paid software. All projects, whether free or proprietary require compensation of some kind, or else they wouldn't exist.
There is a legitimate debate around if proprietary software is ethical. The whole existence of the free software movement is because the proponents of it saw proprietary software as unethical.
So while I understand the love for FOSS and an Ad Free Experience, somebody still has to pay for the server time. Now I know this doesnt exactly work in THIS scenario with Sync, but couldnt ads and paid subs in Apps be a good way for Lemmy/KBin instances for be financed without having to rely on donations?
For Example, imagine if Lemmy.ml had their own app with their own experience and if you wanted to support it without actually handing over money, now you could use ads in the mobile experience and feel a little better about your lurking.