As a software engineer I find it miraculous the amount of people that whine about somebody wanting to get paid for putting weeks, months, and years of their life into a product 100s of thousands of people CHOOSE to use.
So many people sound more like "What do you mean making a website costs more than $20?" types than they realize.
Have been using the Sync reddit app daily for years after paying a couple of quid to remove ads whenever I did that. Felt like a steal then and expensive now so, on balance, I'm comfortable having paid the ad randsome. I feel better knowing it all goes to the developer for his personal efforts.
And it's a very high quality app, to boot. I've been a mobile software engineer for more than a decade and this level of polish doesn't just happen by accident
Same. I'm very grateful for the FOSS options, they're like a public option. They create a baseline that paid apps have to surpass, but there's nothing wrong with devs getting paid for their work and that payment shouldn't have to be at the whims of donations. I view it as more choice and more choice is good. This is a small dev on an open platform that can't lock out FOSS options. It's not a mega corp building a monopoly. Sync is not hurting anyone by being a paid option.
The way i look at is if you give me a good app(sync) with good functionality and a nice ui I don't mind seeing ad's or throwing some money the devs way.
My big issue with the reddit app was there was no equivalent exchange going on i had a shitty app with awful ui that was buggy slow showed me adds and tracked my data I didn't get anything from that so I had to stop.
Paying is fine, it's the SHIT TON OF THIRD PARTY TRACKERS they put in the app that worry me
That's where I'm at. Don't care that it's not FOSS or the Dev charges. I just wouldn't support an app that puts trackers and ads on a product that inherently doesn't. Putting it behind a paywall wouldn't bother me a bit.
That said, that's why I don't use it nor support it but don't give a shit if someone else does.
Can't we just be happy that we're not on Reddit instead of fighting over which UI we prefer!?
Many of us left reddit due to which
AIUI we prefer. So I can see why this happens now.I thought it was due to wanting to try a non corporate alternative to social media. Before Spez mishandling of the incident I was ready to just use old.reddit.com on Firefox and figure out how to get RES onto mobile, or just use it less and more on desktop only. Had he just quietly let the protest pass by without throwing a tantrum I'd probably still be using reddit.
Didn't most of us? If you were happy using reddit app you are almost certainly still drooling on yourself scrolling through the super sexy posts on /askreddit and think Lemmy is probably the name of a band that nerds like.
The fact we can even pick between multiple UIs is a blessing lol
Agreed.
I use two and it’s okay. I uninstalled Reddit app today and deleted every account. I already had did it on the main start of July but the other accounts had to follow through
I'm not fighting, I just want sync users to shut the fuck up and stop advertising their app at every possible minute, because those of us who aren't using it have already decided it isn't the one for us.
My reply to all the naysayers:
Thanks for making Lemmy feel like home, it wouldn't without you!
The reality is it's a free world, regardless of what morality you put on things there are going to be things that happen that you don't like. That's life.
Like it or not Lemmy has had explosive growth because of apps like Sync. Because of them being killed off by Reddit. If it weren't for the drama of Reddit doing that, I and millions of other users wouldn't be here right now as we'd still be on Reddit.
Even people who weren't using the 3rd party apps left Reddit because Reddit's actions left a bad taste in their mouths.
So, morality of one guy charging for his honest work in creating the paid or ad supported app aside, you should be thanking the apps including sync for helping drive so many users to Lemmy.
If you yourself don't want to use a paid app, then that's okay! We're all allowed to respond or react to things how we want, but being incredibly divisive for something that a lot of people wanted and that really is inconsequential is almost universally frowned on.
Just let people do what they want and don't shoot them down for it. More options for browsing Lemmy = more Lemmings = more content.
Much love my dudes! We may disagree on this but we agree on many many many more things I'm sure, just because we're on Lemmy instead of Reddit in the first place is proof of that! ✌️
People care too much about which app you use. At the end of the day, as long as you're happy with sync it shouldn't matter
I agree, just wish they would stop mentioning how their app is “just so great and only $20 to get no ads” in every single thread and every other post on every instance
Oh man, Sync is just so great and only $20 to get no ads you should give it a try!
Play store link: Sync for Lemmy
The only comments I personally see are complaining about the price. Most people just use it. I subscribed instantly and knew I would before the price was revealed. I'm only saying it because it's on topic now, but tend not to get into the discussion because in the end it's up to the individual whether or not the cost makes the app worth using.
Unless it should? And we shall bully them? They should feel unneeded there?
They put ads and ask for cash while showing other people's free resources they put their mind to create? While no other client do so? And plenty of people\bots enable them? And call that a pointless argument on fediverse? Lmao.
Their spines should be broken asap, and everything around Lemmy should stay free or donation-based. If it is not, next you see are paywalled apps and instances. No one would benefit from a trend of purchaseable clients but these devs, while they don't bring content, or anything to the table. Their app is useless without others' work, and yet they charge you 20-100 bucks for being a middleman between you and it. It's senseless.
Fuck sync devs. Fuck sync shills. Fuck them all.
Thanks for making Lemmy feel like home, it wouldn't without you!
The reality is it's a free world, regardless of what morality you put on things there are going to be things that happen that you don't like. That's life.
Like it or not Lemmy has had explosive growth because of apps like Sync. Because of them being killed off by Reddit. If it weren't for the drama of Reddit doing that, I and millions of other users wouldn't be here right now as we'd still be on Reddit.
Even people who weren't using the 3rd party apps left Reddit because Reddit's actions left a bad taste in their mouths.
So, morality of one guy charging for his honest work in creating the paid or ad supported app aside, you should be thanking the apps including sync for helping drive so many users to Lemmy.
If you yourself don't want to use a paid app, then that's okay! We're all allowed to respond or react to things how we want, but being incredibly divisive for something that a lot of people wanted and that really is inconsequential is almost universally frowned on.
Just let people do what they want and don't shoot them down for it. More options for browsing Lemmy = more Lemmings = more content.
Much love my dude! We may disagree on this but we agree on many many many more things I'm sure, just because we're on Lemmy instead of Reddit in the first place is proof of that! ✌️
Lol
Remember folks whether you choose to use sync or another lemmy app none of us are using reddits shitty mobile app and in that way we are all winners
This to me is the most salient point. I think this initial noise will fade away once the various options are all available.
It will never completely go away because people love to be tribal but it will probably settle into puticular communities where people can talk about the different lemmy apps
I'm on both so there's that and I ain't rebuying sync when all he literally did was a copy and paste job.
Are you stupid? The backend is completely different and there are many many changes required since the fundamental concept of federation-based services is different and requires different user decisions, which need a UI. No instances on Reddit, are there? So there's not an infinite number of log in urls, there is no need to gracefully handle defederation, instance-level blocking, etc.
It's not a copy paste job.
Also, he offers a "restore purchases" button. It's in settings.
Honestly I'm using, and especially posting on, Lemmy much more often now that I have sync back.
I had been using Sync for Reddit for so many years that it became muscle memory. Now I have it back and things just feel right.
Jeroba on mobile, web app inside of firefox with adblockers on desktop.
I used Jeroba while I was waiting for sync to come out. Personally it's really no competition, it's great that it is being worked on but Jeroba is significantly worse in every way except for being open source. Hopefully someday it will be great!
Synk is just so polished comparatively everything else feels unfinished
I ditched Jerboa for Liftoff, and then Liftoff for Thunder because they all kept breaking.
Thunder was alright, all things considered, but the UI is lacking. Now that Sync is out, I'm back to where I started 12+ years ago.
Yeah I feel the same. Used sync for Reddit for YEARS too. I've been using Lemmy way more since Sync launched. I'm happy with it 🤷.
I personally stopped browsing Reddit once getting sync. It just FEELS right.
When did Sync launch? I was on the waitlist but just installed, waiting to try it out.
Well Im trying out sync and it's honestly such a good and polished app. A big Kudos to the dev. Would probably buy the premium if the pricing goes down.
It's definitely the most polished, snappiest, cleanest Lemmy app atm and I am loving it
Memmy is incredible. I wonder how they stack up.
Amazing how good it is considering the amount of back end changes needed.
It was obviously written well with separation of concerns considered so it could be done that way.
If you count back the Reddit versions this is the 3rd or 4th version. Keeps getting better and better.
Personally, I don't give a flying fuck what client any of you use as long as you are here. :)
Hear hear!
$20 to support a solo dev AND remove ads from his awesome lemmy client? Sweet!
Are there any Lemmy apps that actually let you click and highlight a parent comment and then click on a next button to automatically and instantly scroll to the next apparent level comment? RiF (Reddit is fun) had that feature and I can't believe I'm not seeing it on either connect for Lemmy or that sync app.
Yeah, why are some people saying it's a hundred dollars? I'm still using the free version, but my Google Play page is saying 20 bucks. I don't know where that extra 80 is coming from
Sync ultra
AND remove ads
See that's what I find obnoxious. IMO programs should not have advertising because nothing should have advertising. Advertising is capitalist conditioning. It shoves consumerism down our throats. The last thing we need now is more mindless consumption!
I suppose that if you don't have any contempt for or opposition to advertising then there really isn't a reason to complain. But I really wish people would take a stand against advertisement, or more generally capitalism and consumerism. Really, who would choose an application where space is wasted on selling them crap when any other option is available? I think such a choice is influenced by the idea that advertising is an inherent part of life, an idea which needs to be countered whenever it crops up. You should be free to make choices that others find irrational of course, but I still think that we need to step up and counter the logic that advertising is some neutral force.
If the developer wants to monetize the program, he could find some other way to do it, such as luxury features, premium support, or premium feature requests. However, my view is that things that occur primarily to make money should probably not occur at all, and that they only happen because capitalism has been imposed upon us. Said differently: if you don't want to develop an app, then just don't do it. I'm absolutely willing to compensate you for your work, and I know that we all need to make a living (under capitalism!), but if the money is forcing you to do it, then clearly you wouldn't do it in a free environment [1].
But at the end of the day, I cannot stress enough how sick I am of being advertised to. No, I don't want to buy your product. If I want to obtain something, I will go to your website or subscribe to your mailing list, or otherwise proactively indicate my interest. If you want to promote stuff, promote your own stuff or stuff , so ince you think your audience/customers would be interested in, because I've already somehow explicitly indicated that I'm interested in your affairs/wares. So I've made it a goal to expel advertising from all aspects of my life.
[1] Yes, this would imply that the vast majority of workers would drop out of the workforce and go do things that they enjoy. This would be a good thing. We don't need to waste all our time doing "productive" stuff anymore.
I too dream of a world where we've moved on from capitalism to a socialist utopia like is in the United Federation of Planets, but we are not currently in that world. So until that time, we all have to earn a living to pay our landlords and feed ourselves.
For most things we are given a choice between ads or paying, and I almost always choose paying for no ads as I can't stand them either. But until developers can live without bills and only do work for free because they enjoy it, our choice remains pay for no ads or be served ads. So I paid for no ads.
I'm gonna be really happy when school is back in session.
Surely we can agree it's better to have too many choices rather than having some greedy piggy ban them all.
One thing I didn't like from Reddit, the elitism and gatekeeping posts from its users. OP, I'm right there with you.
It does seem like a large number of Lemmy users are elitist snobs. I thought this place was turning out better than Reddit, but it's looking like I was wrong. People like that ruin platforms like this and sour the experience.
FOSS and focus on privacy does that to some people, they feel superior because they worry about those things they see as being beneficial.
I'm sure many of the users from the before time were here specifically to not use a closed source, data gathering platform, so they're a bigger proportion of users than they were on Reddit and they tolerate the most extreme elements of their community that also happen to be the most vocal.
TL;DR: Reddit is for normies and now normies are on a platform where radicals were everywhere and part of the majority before they arrived.
There are many entitled people here. Some of them are from linux community. Anything other than that is bad and 1000 posts related to that. Another is sync and other apps. Especially open source only good, closed source everything bad. My feed was full of that. Even though I am a sync user i feel angry when seeing so many non sense posts supporting and against that. Even some communities not related to these are posting this.
The reason why many people swapped was because Lemmy harbors smarter individuals. I need to feel superior simply because I use Lemmy, Otherwise there's no point.
Shouldn't an ethical human choose tools that do more good than harm? As long as an application does that, does it matter if it's open source or not? The software we use in our daily lives is a personal choice and people shouldn't be shamed for choosing a closed source application. Especially one created by an independent, craftsman software company. Sync, and other well-designed for-profit clients, benefit Lemmy, an open platform. That benefits all.
Let me add, many of us are social media refugees, fleeing exploitative and closed platforms like Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook. There is also nothing wrong with continually evaluating the closed source solutions we choose to prevent repeating past mistakes.
I don't know about doing good or harm but I've used sync for reddit for years and years. The dev isn't some big corporation and that's generally enough for me. I'll support them as long as their app has the experience that I prefer. I tried a few different apps until sync came out and I really gave them all a fair shot but none of them felt right. The fact that so many users bailed to Lemmy because Reddit broke third party apps and then turned around and got up people's butts for using specific third party apps is kind of hilarious to me. A huge wave of users came here for sync etc and people are trying to push them away or bully them like reddit did? They might not be bullying for the same exact reason but it's got the same vibe imo.
Ironically, from what I've seen the sync users have been way more radical than the "anti-sync" users.
Before you read this I cannot stress enough that I'm neutral in this, I'm just a little irritated that I'm now seeing this in basically every sub.
There's been examples of the reverse from both sides, but the fact that I am now seeing this spam about pointless shit like this on shitpost is proof of this.
It is just an app, both of you. Sync dev should donate some profit (even as small as 1%) to Lemmy devs because his app relies on their software. App itself doesn't have to be free but if it includes anti-features in the name of profits it is only fair, otherwise it is an exploitation of the GPL.
Lemmy being a FOSS project with no ads running, it is pretty much up to devs pockets, instances pockets, and donations to keep the project going. If the sync developer is going to make money off of an app that essentially serves as a gateway to this service, ethically speaking he should contribute to it considering the software itself is what even makes the app function. If Lemmy were to shutdown, the app would be useless.
Having been involved in the FOSS community for 18 years, the community heavily relies on the collaboration, contributions, and donations of those who partake in it. Without at least one of those things, the project dies, I have seen it hundreds of times now. Wherever you (all of you) may stand when it comes to FOSS, know that using Lemmy technically makes you a part of that community.
We will see if the people here are sane or not by watching the karma of this post. If it is negative then the people in this argument are blinded by unnecessary rage and need to cool it.
yeah i just dont care
Gatekeepers are going to be the number 1 threat to lemmy growing
I'm just happy for anything that brings people to Lemmy
I once did an amazing milkshake
I'm home 😭😭
🫂
I used sync for years and no matter how many times I tried using other Reddit apps I always went back to using Sync. I was happy to see Sync reborn again as a lemmy client. Yes FOSS is nice but I have no problems supporting LJ even if sync isn't open sourced.
It's not SfR, but it was created in a panic by a dedicated author. It'll get better.
Not a sync user but cant wait for infinity for lemmy to be mature enough to appear on fdroid
I've been using it over the last few days and I'm pretty impressed with it so far. Before that I was using connect, then sync but didn't like the ads and insane prices, also tried out a few others but ultimately settled with infinity.
I've been using infinity for reddit ever since sync died and I find infinity for lemmy is quite polished and runs the smoothest out of all the apps I've tried, even smoother then sync for lemmy. The only bug I've ran into is trying to press the profile button on the navigation draw at the bottom crashes the app but it still works from the hamburger menu. I like that I have two of the same apps for both reddit and lemmy that are identical in both looks and usage too.
Ohana means family
Sync for Reddit was one of the more popular Reddit apps on Android. (Maybe even the biggest?) Now that Reddit has stopped being reasonable with their API fees, the developer of Sync has been working on a Lemmy client using the same name. It released a couple days ago.
Most of the other Lemmy clients on Android are free and open source, but Sync is closed source and will be ad supported unless users pay a $20 one-time fee to remove ads or pay for a subscription to get some additional features. Because Sync is closed source, there's no way for users to audit what data the app is collecting or sending out.
Many users are using Sync because it's familiar and has a high degree of polish and functionality thanks to being a fork of a very well established app. Its popularity, along with the issues I mentioned above have got a vocal portion of the user base railing against the app and another vocal portion of the user base defending it.
i use sync btw
I’m not an Android user, so I don’t know Sync, but it’s bound to be a better Lemmy app than those godawful cross platform ones. I’m glad it exists!
Obligatory G'day from the kbin PWA :)
We're still waiting for our native app.
Eventually ❤️
Can't wait for Sync to let me login to my kbin account too! Also, I greatly prefer kbins showing the upvotes and downvotes on posts, wish Lemmy had that...
So far the only community I have blocked is the synch for lemmy community, because of the massive spam of posts about synch.
So can we please stop spamming about it in other communities too.
99% of the sync spam I've seen has been from every community other than the sync community. I saw maybe 3 posts from there saying they liked the app and that's it, and everywhere else I see posts from people having a fit over using or not using 1 out of like, what, 10 available apps? The spam really isn't coming from the sync community specifically to begin with tbh.
Yeah lol. All the spam I've seen comes from the meme communities that had multiple posts complaining about Sync. Like I've seen more people complain it isn't FOSS than anything else so far.
Only other major times I've seen it across lemmy was when it was up for pre-registration and when it came out. The former seemed to be spammed a ton because people thought it had actually came out and tried to spread the word & the latter was just people posting when it actually came out.
The complaining feels the same as when reddit mobile users kept laughing about 3rd party apps to feel superior in some way. I saw some actually comment how stupid some 3rd party app users were for paying for a paid app or subscription to view reddit when the official app was free.
I'm just going to ignore the rest of these posts after this and hide them. It all just makes them look obnoxious and full of themselves. Basically the type of shit that made me happy to leave Reddit.
home sweet home
I didn't use Sync with reddit but since it's the best one for Lemmy... Here I am! On Sync! Enjoying it!
Is it considered wrong meme because Sync for Lemmy is only available on Android, while the meme is using an older iPhone?
Shit! The meme is using the wrong phone! It's meaning is lost!!!
🤣
It is meaning is lost!!!
It truly is a beautiful sight
After reading through comments. This a hot topic
It's kinda great though isn't it? Reminds me of old times. Do you think we'll relive the android vs iOS wars soon? Oh, omg... Have we done the grilled cheese vs melt thing here yet???
What's the difference between Sync and the other apps for Lemmy?
Sync for Lemmy is smooth and responsive. Just like how it was on Reddit. After using Sync, you will be comparing every other app experience against it.
Give it a try. You have nothing to loose.
Unlike what some folks have suggested, I don't notice any speed or loading advantages over the other native apps. Some of the other offerings may be a little better but the biggest performance gains when it comes to loading will come from moving off the largest instances to a smaller one.
The main differentiating characteristics IMO are below.
Pros:
-
The interface is essentially the one from the Reddit app. It's a mature design in terms of polish and is overall more minimalistic and clean UI. I find it consistent and intuitive to navigate.
-
Decent amount of customization. While not exhaustive, the options presented are all well thought out. This includes moving things to side bar, bottom bar, and/or a floating action button.
Caveats:
-
Ads by default, with a $20 one-time payment option to remove them. There's also an optional subscription (or a $100 lifetime subscription) for added features, which will include push notifications. Prices may be much higher for some other countries as adjustments for purchasing power haven't been made yet.
-
As an early build, some basic functionality hasn't yet been implemented including submitting posts or editing post titles. If you're a moderator, mod functionality and reports haven't been implemented yet.
-
Like other apps that were originally for Reddit, there are still some legacy references to subreddits. Sync also seems to still use orange for upvotes and blue for downvotes, which is the opposite from Lemmy.
-
It's closed source. Without OAuth, the Lemmy devs have discouraged logging in with closed source apps (although I personally trust ljdawson).
-
Some people don't trust Sync having ad tracking built-in. They're disabled if you purchase ad removal. Otherwise, there was only one incident in the past where the app began injecting Amazon referral codes into URLs but this was reversed.
-
Sync is closed source, while most of the other apps are open source. So you can't see or modify the code of Sync.
Way better UI and UX, more and better features and customizability. It's closed source though. This may be a deal breaker for some.
For me though, if I have 2 apps of the same quality, I'll obviously choose the open source one, but if one is clearly better than the other, then I'll choose the better app, regardless if it's open source or not.
I'm so home it's crazy..
I haven’t looked into what Sync is but it sounds like it’s more than just
RedditLemmy?Also a paid app?
If it’s a paid app then that makes me think quality to be honest. It’s probably misguided, but my default is to feel that if you need to pay up front for an app it’s going to be higher quality and not full of ads/microtransactions.
Free with ads. Paid either once or monthly to get rid of ads.
It's a wonderful app.
Same here it's just good to be back using sync.
I feel nearly alone in preferring connect. It's still a bit glitchy but definitely very usable and above all: clean. I feel like the other apps all have a bunch of texts sizes and visuals I don't need. Connect just feels like a cleaned up reddit UI to me. If boost ever comes out I may switch to it, but I've already been feeling like connect is what the UI "should" look like. Others feel oddly busy to me
I find the connect UI to be really similar to Sync. They both group the vote buttons on posts, unlike all the alternatives, which reduces visual clutter and the icons and layout seem well designed in terms of icon and text size and margins looking symmetric (looks less like a backend dev just threw all the buttons vaguely where they're supposed to go).
One thing connect seems to do better is that collapsing a comment collapses the comment itself and not just the replies (makes it easier to move down a thread by collapsing each root comment). On the other hand, the tap target for re-expanding the comment seems to not extend the whole width of the collapsed comment.
I'm in a similar boat to wanting the reddit app but cleaner and not buggy. So connect and sync are my top 2 right now. I didn't mind the reddit app UI it was just so buggy and laggy.
I used to use connect, it's great, but i eventually found Thunder to be pretty great, and now i found Infinity for Lemmy, which is great
Infinity is like a better connect. Same soft of UI but doesn't come with the lag and jitter that I experienced with connect for so long.
I just feel like I'm back on kuro5hin
Now that's a name
hot grits, yadda yadda, +5 troll, yadda yadda, netcraft confirms it
:')
Honestly, just use whatever works for you, I think it's a good idea to have a discussion about the amount so a few more people who pay for the client maybe also donate a little towards their home instance but I don't care about Sync anymore and I am sick of it! Can we please get some kind of word filters to block stuff?
I'm absolutely thrilled to have sync on the Fediverse, and will happily pay for a yearly subscription to help ensure LJD has sufficient compensation to keep the app up-to-date with whatever changes come to the Android/Lemmy APIs years down the road.
The problem with (even excellent) free apps for platforms like this, is they require consistent maintenance to keep up with both the platform they run on (Android), and the platform they serve content for (Lemmy). That is not a trivial amount of work, and is absolutely deserving of continued, recurring compensation IMO.
A one-time payment might make sense for a simple native game that gets produced once, has no web component, and never needs another update for its entire lifetime, but not for this. You aren't paying for a singular product, you're paying for a service. You wouldn't go to the barber and winged about needing to pay every time I get my hair cut.
Ironically, it is not available on iPhone lol
Never was :P
Atleast they got Voyager.
What is the different between sync and every other app?
Sync is familiar to us who has used it for years. Personally idgaf if other people use it or like it, I love it and it works perfectly for me. Find the app that works for you and use it.
Not a whole lot. Definitely not $2/month worth of differences.
Overall, Sync is less buggy and has a nicer UI than other apps. It lets you customize how you want to see content a lot more, with 6 different layouts (from compact to full cards) and has everything you need for quick actions and gestures. It's just one of the more feature complete options because it has 10+ years of development behind it.
Other apps may get there eventually, but right now Sync is one of the best.
I miss the pro version I had without ads... I'll probably end up jumping ship if that isn't an option.
There is. You can remove ads. It initially wasn't an option as he didn't feel like it was at a point yet to have a charged option, while the subscription service was aimed at users willing to help fund development. That confusion caused the back lash so he added the remove ad option in the next update.
Can yall stop posting about this proprietary shitware app
this comment was posted from Jerboa, the app where you don't have to pay 20$ for the privilege of not seeing ads and not being tracked
That's Top-10-social-apps-on-the-Play-store shitware app to you
You are using jerboa for free? How are the developers making money?
Jerboa, just an most other open source clients, accepts donations. I encourage everyone to donate to open-source projects and I support the original commenter.
Flipping burgers
