I installed Sync to try it out, and noticed the subscription model for no ads, and for basic features like push notifications and exporting a list of your subscribed communities. $2/month or $100 for a “lifetime” subscription. Immediately uninstalled it, yes it has a beautiful interface but I’ve never been fond of subscription-based apps, especially for FOSS services. A low one-time fee would be acceptable to me, like the $4 fee for Toot! for Mastodon.
The silly thing to me about the subscription is, they say it’s to “cover the monthly running costs”. What running costs do they incur if Lemmy is free and open? I’m genuinely curious, if anyone knows please tell me.
The app is technically free, but yes it is made by a single dev and it is/was his income, so it’s ad-supported.
The development is still ongoing and so some things aren’t finalized, but there is a one time payment option that will be available (something like $10) to just remove ads.
The Ultra tier which has the subscription cost (and much higher one time cost at $99) is what incurs monthly fees in this case, mostly for cloud storage for things like settings and I believe an OCR and translation API.
Ultimately, use whatever makes you happy and aligns with your principles, but there are at least a few good reasons why it is how it is.
I do agree that $10 is more in line with what I’d expect personally, but to be fair you have a few options before getting to that point.
If you know you’re going to be using Sync and staying on Lemmy, you have no problem.
If you’re staying on Lemmy but just trying Sync, you can just use the app with ads for a while to try it out, or you could subscribe to the monthly subscription which is like $2 a month, and if you are still using it 10 months later then it’s clearly worth the cost to you.
Or if you don’t like ads and you don’t like subscriptions and you’re not attached to Sync, you probably just move on to another app!
The app itself uses cloud services and apis. Those cost money. Lemmy and lemmy instances cost money to run as well, and it is struggling to stay afloat with donations according to a post I read from the lemmy.world admins.
That being said, I am sure syncs monetization is setup in a way to at least make the creator a few bucks on top of paying for the services. Also, the ultimate tier on sync that is like 100 20 dollars a year basically adds access to some “advanced apis” providing translations and site previews.
Edit: 20 dollars a year not 100 for sync ultra. Also, it’s 20 dollars to remove ads forever. I think there was talk about a lifetime sync ultra for 100 dollars at some point and I got confused.
Sync for Reddit had a low one time cost. But it was worth more to me than the few coffees I spent on it. I think the developer knew this, and upped the price to something reasonable. I was happy to pay, even though I already use AdAway. I’m a FOSS developer too, but there is good reason for an app being closed source (sole proprietorship and jury) and paid.
Also, my time is expensive. There’s no reason the dev of Sync shouldn’t also be paid.
Same, i bought Sync Pro 10 years ago for something like $3 and used it daily for 10 years, thousands of hours. I was waiting for Sync for Lemmy and bought it too.
My best guess would be the development cost. I guess they created the app as a business, not for/by the community.
I don’t blame them, but I also won’t support them. I’ll just keep supporting lemmy/jerboa instead. I don’t have absolutely anything against sync, but I generally don’t like supporting that business model and trust open source a little more.
“What running costs do they incur if Lemmy is free and open?”
The time they spend to make a product better. That is extra money they can use to put more effort into the app.
Sync’s edge is the features it has, the customizable UI and a great developer that listens to its willing consumers that will pay to continue making that app better.
“I saw a subscription model for basic features…”
See this is my issue. The app is usable. You have the choice to pay. So don’t if you don’t want to. The API and features you want aren’t here for a cost and that is fine.
You know what though? I will keep paying for those features a smoother Lemmy experience. An experience that brings more people from Reddit that gives the end user a smoother and much more impactful first impression.
If you were to hand me Jerboa and Sync at the same time and let me look them over. I would still pay for Sync. If you were to tell me which app I would recommend to a new user. I would tell them Sync. Why? Because Sync just over all functions and runs better. The UI is better. The little featured to tweak your experience are better. Navigation is better. I can use Sync on a tablet or larger device.
Sync creates a better first impression. People use things that look nice, work even more nicely. Here is the real shocker, they will even pay for those things.
Yes, I purchased Pro for Reddut years ago, and this single dev continually made updates and features. He listened to the community and mad value added improvement constantly. I have zero issues dropping $20 and supporting what I know will be a quality product. I’m just not sure about the subscription based as I don’t think i need those features.
It’s a $20 one time fee to remove ads, and I appreciate that there’s a lifetime option and I don’t think $20 is price gouging for an app that will receive updates far into the future.
I looked at the subscription features and most of them are features that requires hosted resources. The additional non standard user features require hosting so it stays with you even if you reinstall the app, plus it has other features that require external paid apis like translation and ocr, so I think it’s reasonable to charge for that when it costs money to provide those features.
Either way, the good thing is that there will be lots of options, both free and paid. Free ones will impose a baseline level of quality paid apps need to excel beyond and competing paid apps with keep the price competitive and reasonable. What’s important is choice, and because lemmy is an open standard platform, that choice can never be taken from us.
I’m of the same state of mind: it’s a superb interface, but I won’t give money to an app developer to remove ads from a service that does not display ads inherently.
I have no problem with folks using Sync, web app, Liftoff, whatever. This should not be divisive.
The purchase is to remove ads, but the ads are not too intrusive and respectable. I barely notice them to be honest. I plan to wait for a few more clients to come out and pay a one time fee to the one I like the most. The paid clients are just much more polished than the FOSS ones. I’m very happy the FOSS ones exist, they’re like a public option and provide a baseline of quality the paid apps need to surpass, but I’m absolutely happy to have good devs get paid for high quality work. I’m a dev too, I contribute to FOSS, but I sure would like to continue to make a living, so I’d be a hypocrite if I refused to see small devs get paid.
The dev asked their most ravenous fans about what they would consider acceptable to pay, and to much surprise they said sky’s the limit (while also paying for monthly subs and the dev’s patreon). And here we are.
I installed Sync to try it out, and noticed the subscription model for no ads, and for basic features like push notifications and exporting a list of your subscribed communities. $2/month or $100 for a “lifetime” subscription. Immediately uninstalled it, yes it has a beautiful interface but I’ve never been fond of subscription-based apps, especially for FOSS services. A low one-time fee would be acceptable to me, like the $4 fee for Toot! for Mastodon.
The silly thing to me about the subscription is, they say it’s to “cover the monthly running costs”. What running costs do they incur if Lemmy is free and open? I’m genuinely curious, if anyone knows please tell me.
A few points to make and answer:
The app is technically free, but yes it is made by a single dev and it is/was his income, so it’s ad-supported.
The development is still ongoing and so some things aren’t finalized, but there is a one time payment option that will be available (something like $10) to just remove ads.
The Ultra tier which has the subscription cost (and much higher one time cost at $99) is what incurs monthly fees in this case, mostly for cloud storage for things like settings and I believe an OCR and translation API.
Ultimately, use whatever makes you happy and aligns with your principles, but there are at least a few good reasons why it is how it is.
Just a quick correction, to just remove ads it’s $20, which is ridiculous to ask for a lifetime of something only a few months old (lemmy).
Lemmy had been around for a few years already, it didn’t magically appear because of the reddit drama.
I do agree that $10 is more in line with what I’d expect personally, but to be fair you have a few options before getting to that point.
If you know you’re going to be using Sync and staying on Lemmy, you have no problem.
If you’re staying on Lemmy but just trying Sync, you can just use the app with ads for a while to try it out, or you could subscribe to the monthly subscription which is like $2 a month, and if you are still using it 10 months later then it’s clearly worth the cost to you.
Or if you don’t like ads and you don’t like subscriptions and you’re not attached to Sync, you probably just move on to another app!
The app itself uses cloud services and apis. Those cost money. Lemmy and lemmy instances cost money to run as well, and it is struggling to stay afloat with donations according to a post I read from the lemmy.world admins.
That being said, I am sure syncs monetization is setup in a way to at least make the creator a few bucks on top of paying for the services. Also, the ultimate tier on sync that is like
10020 dollars a year basically adds access to some “advanced apis” providing translations and site previews.Edit: 20 dollars a year not 100 for sync ultra. Also, it’s 20 dollars to remove ads forever. I think there was talk about a lifetime sync ultra for 100 dollars at some point and I got confused.
I believe you are confusing the lifetime price with the yearly one.
Thanks for the correction. You are right. I think I got confused from another thread about sync. I looked it up and fixed it.
Sync for Reddit had a low one time cost. But it was worth more to me than the few coffees I spent on it. I think the developer knew this, and upped the price to something reasonable. I was happy to pay, even though I already use AdAway. I’m a FOSS developer too, but there is good reason for an app being closed source (sole proprietorship and jury) and paid.
Also, my time is expensive. There’s no reason the dev of Sync shouldn’t also be paid.
Same, i bought Sync Pro 10 years ago for something like $3 and used it daily for 10 years, thousands of hours. I was waiting for Sync for Lemmy and bought it too.
My best guess would be the development cost. I guess they created the app as a business, not for/by the community.
I don’t blame them, but I also won’t support them. I’ll just keep supporting lemmy/jerboa instead. I don’t have absolutely anything against sync, but I generally don’t like supporting that business model and trust open source a little more.
I didn’t know sync was that expensive though lol
“What running costs do they incur if Lemmy is free and open?”
The time they spend to make a product better. That is extra money they can use to put more effort into the app.
Sync’s edge is the features it has, the customizable UI and a great developer that listens to its willing consumers that will pay to continue making that app better.
“I saw a subscription model for basic features…”
See this is my issue. The app is usable. You have the choice to pay. So don’t if you don’t want to. The API and features you want aren’t here for a cost and that is fine.
You know what though? I will keep paying for those features a smoother Lemmy experience. An experience that brings more people from Reddit that gives the end user a smoother and much more impactful first impression.
If you were to hand me Jerboa and Sync at the same time and let me look them over. I would still pay for Sync. If you were to tell me which app I would recommend to a new user. I would tell them Sync. Why? Because Sync just over all functions and runs better. The UI is better. The little featured to tweak your experience are better. Navigation is better. I can use Sync on a tablet or larger device.
Sync creates a better first impression. People use things that look nice, work even more nicely. Here is the real shocker, they will even pay for those things.
FYI There’s a 22€ (prolly 20$) lifetime purchase for “pro” which will cover most nice features as well.
$20 fee is specifically to remove ads, pro is a subscription or $100 fee
Does that get rid of ads?
Yes, I purchased Pro for Reddut years ago, and this single dev continually made updates and features. He listened to the community and mad value added improvement constantly. I have zero issues dropping $20 and supporting what I know will be a quality product. I’m just not sure about the subscription based as I don’t think i need those features.
Yes it does :)
Yes, I bought it, no ads no tracking
It only gets rid of ads.
Yes
I hate your name
Thank you.
It’s a $20 one time fee to remove ads, and I appreciate that there’s a lifetime option and I don’t think $20 is price gouging for an app that will receive updates far into the future.
I looked at the subscription features and most of them are features that requires hosted resources. The additional non standard user features require hosting so it stays with you even if you reinstall the app, plus it has other features that require external paid apis like translation and ocr, so I think it’s reasonable to charge for that when it costs money to provide those features.
Either way, the good thing is that there will be lots of options, both free and paid. Free ones will impose a baseline level of quality paid apps need to excel beyond and competing paid apps with keep the price competitive and reasonable. What’s important is choice, and because lemmy is an open standard platform, that choice can never be taken from us.
I’m of the same state of mind: it’s a superb interface, but I won’t give money to an app developer to remove ads from a service that does not display ads inherently.
I have no problem with folks using Sync, web app, Liftoff, whatever. This should not be divisive.
You don’t have to buy Sync. It’s got a free version.
The purchase is to remove ads, but the ads are not too intrusive and respectable. I barely notice them to be honest. I plan to wait for a few more clients to come out and pay a one time fee to the one I like the most. The paid clients are just much more polished than the FOSS ones. I’m very happy the FOSS ones exist, they’re like a public option and provide a baseline of quality the paid apps need to surpass, but I’m absolutely happy to have good devs get paid for high quality work. I’m a dev too, I contribute to FOSS, but I sure would like to continue to make a living, so I’d be a hypocrite if I refused to see small devs get paid.
I just like it’s a better user interface. And it works.
You can pay something like $20 to get an ad-free version.
I’ve never used it but I might check it out seeing as it has so many fans, and Liftoff has a few things I dislike.
deleted by creator
The dev asked their most ravenous fans about what they would consider acceptable to pay, and to much surprise they said sky’s the limit (while also paying for monthly subs and the dev’s patreon). And here we are.
Bold of them to assume they’ll even still be maintaining this app in 4.16 years
It’s been great for the past 10 years.