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.
Don’t get me started on twitch subs. Supporting a creator you like is fine, but spending 100s of dollars on gift subs is so stupid.
Twitch looking at their top creators leaving for other platforms.
Increasing our revenue share, unilaterally, should fix this.
“Supporting creators is fine, but supporting them more is so stupid”
Ok LUL.
My guess is they mean in the sense of “support creaters as you’d like, but don’t throw all your money into it just for them to pay attention to you for a second”
Well then they probably should’ve said that instead of saying something unrelated to the point ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Is that what gift subs are? I’ve never understood that. Is it like a tip?
Subs are kinda like tip, except you get something in return. Usually its emotes you can use on any stream on twitch. Some streamers can make other stuff like sub only discord channel but its optional.
Gift subs are exactly the same except you give the benefits to some other chaters.
Eli5 gift subs?
Subs = subscriptions.
A sub on Twitch gives you a badge and special emojis on your subbed channel (streamer).
You also have the option to gift (randomly) 1, 5, 25, 50, 100 subs to random followers (users).
A sub costs $5 in the US, you can gift 100 subs ($500) if you want to.
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.
“They”
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.
FOSS doesn’t pay a mortgage.
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.
OP: Please try and support instance admins and Lemmy devs
Sync fans in the comments: Yes, I bought Sync and love it
I swear I’m trying to not be a dick but it’s like they saw their favorite word and ignored everything else. It’s giving twitter stan.
If all the big instances go away through lack of financial support, they’re going to find out they paid $130 to swap Sync memes with the 3 people left.
And then the dev will probably pitch in funding to instances or host.
They might contribute to an existing instance sure, but I doubt they’d host. There’s no real financial incentive for the profit driven to host a Lemmy instance unless they charge for membership and I doubt even Sync users are naive enough to pay twice for something.
Lemmy.ml is og instance hosted by lemmy devs
Who shutdown sign ups during the influx cause they couldn’t handle it. So don’t expect it to last if all the other instances fail.
Fair enough. That is what I meant for the record. It’s just a business cost at that point.
Sync fans in the comments: Yes, I bought Sync and love it
This is what people said me that would not happens. But, I knew people will think by paying for Sync they will pay for Lemmy (devs and instances).
Ironic because it’s literally the same situation that Reddit was going through that caused the migration to Lemmy in the first place
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.
Agree. The service needs money and if it’s used hours a week… it may deserve some monthly cash.
But spez. Spez had to spez. I try not to click reddit answers on Google now. Someone else can get that traffic/click.
See it’s funny because when I browse everything it’s basically 50% memes from existing lemmy users about not liking sync.
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.
Conversely, all the memes trying to shit on sync by people who never used it or even tried it, who asked?
right? “sync users never shut up”
meanwhile my feed:
edit: and three posts down:
we get it you don’t like sync, I’m just trying to find content in an app i enjoy 🤷♂️
Ohh, that’s mine. Sorry if my post annoyed you, i’m just trying my best adding content to lemmy. Funny enough, i’m really to throw money at ultra sub because i love reddit sync, but seeing the pricing and no regional price while the app still in beta state, i’d rather not, for now.
App is nice though, feels like home.
lol it’s all good 😁 I don’t mind the posts at all
There is regional pricing though, look at the comments under posts about removing ads. Some are paying the equivalent of $15, others €18 to €23.
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.
Let people use what they want, jfc.
Q on infinity, is it possible to hide/collapse comments? When I click on a comment, it just shows/hides the toolbar. That’s what’s stopping me from using at the moment.
On infinity a long press will collapse all comments replying to that comment. With the “Fully collapse comment” setting enabled (under Interface->comment) it will collapse that comment too. The setting “Swap tap and long press in comments” (under Gestures & buttons) will make it so tapping has that effect instead. In the comment toolbar, to the left of the save comment button there is an up arrow that also triggers the collapse of the comment.
Thank you!
Edit: back on infinity with this change :)
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.
Seriously why do you care ?
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.
Again this is organic. A large influx of sync users started being active on Lemmy. It will fade out in a matter of days.
I understand the sentiment but honestly feel like people are creating unnecessary drama. This is just a temporary trend just like we had days and days of beans meme which was also mildly annoying after 5/6 days.
My guy go read the threads title
My guy read the actual post.
They are both the submission. Unfortunately OP made sync’s cost part of the topic and the pivot point into a reasonable ask.
Headlines matter and cannot be completely separated from the entirety of the message.
Y’know, most people are capable of nuance and ascertaining meaning from context.
You realize this branch started with someone adding 0 content about supporting the server or lemmy?
I’m not sure if this is your first time using threaded conversation based software but that’s really not how a thread works.
Is that not the first response to OP on this branch?
Please see my previous response.
Is this a point about using the word, “branch.”
Or you pointing out that conversation organically drifts? Or something else?
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.
Did somebody asked your opinion?
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.
No one asked.
So what is lemmy then?
The “everything ever should be FOSS” cult keeps prodding people that disagree with them, gets angry when those folks argue back, then calls them a cult instead because they “won’t shut up”.
You got a lot more in common with MAGAs than you fuckin realize, damn.
(General support for FOSS is not a cult)
I had to search for what MAGA is.
Make America great again?
I’m not american.
deleted by creator
I call it, “subscription fatigue”.
Work bought me an iPad. It was my first foray into iOS.
I’m not sure what the app store was like before, but I couldn’t find a single app that didn’t have a subscription plan. Even a simple SSH client built using open source libraries wants $6.00/mo.
I totally understand why people groan and do a face palm any time they see yet another app wanting to charge them monthly, hoping that once there you’ll forget that you’ve subscribed.
The only reason that I paid for Sync is that I’ve seen the dev interactions and their dedication to the project. I would never ever pay for a software subscription from any of the big players. For a single person setup, I’m more than happy to do it. I donate to my favorite podcasts and my favorite designers from Thingiverse.
Late stage capitalism and the rent-seeking economy sucks. But becoming accustomed to individuals paying other individuals is one of the things we’re going to have to do to make it suck less.
From the developer’s point of view, subscription makes more sense as people benefit from continual development and updates, and the dev continually gets paid for their time.
I paid $1 or $2 for sync pro like 9 years ago and back then, it took a lot to get me to pay for apps. The more I use the app, the more I got for my money per hour spent using the all. But the more work the dev did after he got my money, the less he gets paid for his labor, per hour.
Nowadays, $1-2 feels like a steal for an app, especially for a one time payment. I haven’t paid for ad-free or ultra yet, but I intend to because he’s shown a long history of listening to his user base and updating/fixing things in a timely manner, which that type of service also is something I value as a customer, even if it isn’t a tangible benefit.
I’m one of those with subscription fatigue but that’s not a problem with sync because you don’t have to subscribe. You can just pay the one time ad-free option and that’s all right with me. I honestly don’t know what’s going on with the vitriol against sync on lemmy. I think most people don’t realise that nobody needs to subscribe to sync, you can use it for free with ads OR you pay the one time fee and have it ads free forever without the other subscription features.
Termius?
I might pay for their subscription if it was like $2 a year. Cloud sync is not worth $120 a year.
I only really need it when I’m transferring devices. Oddly enough, they also seem to give you a free one week trial whenever you do so.
I get that they’re targeting enterprise customers, but they could just charge a smaller fee for individuals and go hard on companies who are skirting the rules.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Good bloody grief! How did a reminder to support Lemmy devs and hosts get hijacked by Sync fans? Sync is a completely different topic.
Yeah, maybe shouldn’t have mentioned sync in my post. I was just doing as a joke though.
It’s a fine segue. I’m just surprised at how many people jumped at the chance to talk about a different topic and ignore your actual message.
Thanks for the reminder, BTW. As soon as I find a permanent home, I’ll add them to the donations list.
Wait wait, what is segue ?? 😂 in my language it means “a wanking session” lmao
LOL! That’s… disturbing… in this case. Funny image, though. And perhaps appropriate given how excited Sync makes some of its users. ;>
It means a smooth transition from one thing to another. In this case, using Sync to introduce the discussion about supporting devs and instances.
It means transition in English 😅
Pronounced the same as Segway. link to hear it
Thanks TIL
What a peculiar coincidence…
You are? It’s quite the hot topic right now.
deleted by creator
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.
They are free to stay closed-source proprietary but prople have the right to voice their opinions.
That is not holier than thou.
The title literally references Sync…if it didn’t, your point would be stronger but I understand the spirit.
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.
deleted by creator
It appears to be hijacked by FOSS fans from what I see.
All I know is I’m already sick of this anti-FOSS users narrative.
I don’t even get how someone can be anti-foss. I feel like it’s a necessity until a critical mass adopts the platform.
We must be looking at different threads, unless Sync is FOSS.
Yeah. If you got 100$ to spare you should be giving it lemmy instead of sync.
deleted by creator
Excuse me. I’m trying to make people feel bad here.
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.
removed by mod
Reddit has benefitted from Sync, and other 3rd party apps, way more than Sync has benefitted from Reddit.
It’s less clear cut with Lemmy, which is supposed to evolve an ecosystem of free tools, so it might be that some day Sync will be benefitting from Lemmy more than Lemmy from Sync… but for now, Lemmy is relatively bare bones, like what Reddit used to be 15 years ago, so any 3rd party app with extra features is still a good thing.
Fortunately, Lemmy has no incentive to go closed source, like Reddit did (let’s not forget Reddit used to be open source while it was convenient for them, then it wasn’t).
removed by mod
Sync is $20 to remove ads no? Where is it $100?
Update: nevermind I see it here for sync ultra
The 100$ 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.
you’re paying for lifetime ads
You don’t need to pay for that, just go to Reddit. Free unlimited lifetime ads! 😉
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.
Just. Let. People. Enjoy. Things.
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?
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.
This is all I’ve been trying to get across, y’all won’t be able to enjoy your sync if the admins can’t pay for the servers. Seek out your home instance’s donation links and come up out them pockets like y’all did for Lawrence. This applies to everyone else too, but since I can clearly see sync users commenting that they paid to remove ads or for lifetime access to upcoming features(like posting), I know they have the money 😂
As far as .World goes, their lowest Patreon sub is $1 a month.
Can you not post from Sync presently?
Yeah, no posting yet. That’s my big issue with Sync on Lemmy so far. Monetization was implemented and there were multiple price increases all before some of the most basic features of Lemmy are even on the app. When everything else is already fully functional and free, it just becomes a harder sell than it was on Reddit.
One change I’d recommend is some sort of “Pay what you want” option for a subscription. If he did a minimum of $2 a month, it would be about the same cost but would make users feel like they have more agency over how much they pay. While I’m sure many people would just pay the minimum, giving users more choice will just lead to people who want to chip in more. We’ve all paid $5 for a humble bundle, but I’m sure a few of us have also chipped in $100 if it was the right charity or cause.
Yeah, the pricing doesn’t match the available feature. I feel like if he price it accordingly to the release and the set of feature, it will fare much better. Like right now he could price it lower, then later on when in full release, raise the price, and then after a while raise the price again.
“Coming Soon” is what pops up at the bottom.
You can comment, just not post
Right. I should have clarified. You can’t create a post in a community yet.
deleted by creator
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’m not seeing many ads tbh. However, I’m damn sure that it’ll be ad-filled after sometime, specially since they are charging so much for the ad-free.
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.
Well, compared to Reddit getting filled with “ad looking like real post”, and “ad written as a comment”, and “mass downvote everyone except the ad”… it’s really hard to stoop that low.
What is likely to keep Sync in check, are the alternative apps. Reddit got enshittified because it became the single point of failure.
I don’t think it’s a given and the dev has a proven track record.
…buuuuuutttt they did move to a much smaller userbase so I wonder how many ads he will need for sustainability.
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.
The ads weren’t terrible on the free Reddit version, they’re just inline ads between posts.
There may have been a banner on some galleries but I’m not sure if that’s carried over also.
I run all my traffic through a slightly anonymizing VPN service that also blocks ads. Turns out the ads here are also blocked 🥳
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.
In my experience, AdGuard has a more useful (free for home use) server that mirrors the pihole service. It’s more customizable, and this bit is probably the key here, and you can have different rules for different devices/network numbers
I can make different rules based on the device group with PiHole.
deleted by creator
You don’t have to explain if you can’t! Don’t feel bad. Supporting yourself should definitely come first. Hope you are doing alright.
Ok well you obviously get a pass homie.
Like every open source projects, you can donate with money or your time. Both are equally valuable. Promoting the project, helping new users, heck, even being pleasant and help fostering positive environment in the fediverse so new users feel welcomed is actually very valuable (especially given current reputation of fediverse citizens being especially harsh to new users).
I don’t get where this reputation came from? I’ve had more positive interactions on Lemmy in the last month than I had on Reddit in the last 10 years, literally. I feel like this is the internet equivalent of Iceland, everyone must think it is a frozen hellscape, but then you get here and it is actually a really nice place to be.
To add to this, it can even be as simple as reporting bugs you find, whether that be with the Lemmy code itself or a client you’re using.
And that’s totally fine. That’s the beauty of the internet, not everybody has to pitch in, and if you can’t you shouldn’t feel bad about it. There was a time when I was a starving college student and was doing the five finger discount on a very regular basis. We’re glad you’re here regardless.
My egalitarian FOSS is showing lol
Yeah, I do wish there was some form of regional pricing going on. Doesn’t seem to be the case if the prices I’m seeing in my (also third world) country are anything to go by.
Y’all are talking about sync, we are talking about donating to your instance admins.
Edit: and the Lemmy devs, if you can.
You’re absolutely right, major brain fart on my part to assume that’s what the person I responded to meant
According to his update I believe he’ll be working on regional prices this week
FYI if you still want to show support, librepay allows you to give a “symbolic donation” of just $0.01 a week, or $0.52 a year
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.
I think lemmy instances should be able to charge for API acce… wait a minute
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!
Hell, I would even dare say, the best way to do it is to have the API be free up to a certain usage, at which point it becomes paid. Then the price scales down as you get even more and more usage.
This allows newcomers to the app space to get their footing, and punishes people trying to automate vote bots while rewarding established devs.
Yes I know, it was just pretty funny that the first comment I saw was about a paid 3rd party app not paying for access, when this was one of reddit’s “official” reasons for the changes.
Exactly, this is something I see people not talk about as much. Charging for API access is not new and actually reasonable. Handling API calls costs money after all. The issue was the intentionally ridiculous price.
If it’s a reasonable price that would be fine 🙂
a reasonable price that’s not foisted without notice? who makes such reasoned business decisions?
“because twitter did it” Spez’s stupid ass thought he should follow suit. idiot’s dumber than a bag of hammers.
Ha, touché. But the difference is that Reddit was already monetized via ads, while Lemmy is not.
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.
sometimes include malware
Source? That’s a pretty serious accusation.
None other than the FBI: https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221?=8324278624
TIL that the FBI recommends using an ad blocker.
I believe the post above yours is missing a semicolon or perhaps a clarification, so it should read something like:
I won’t be buying or using Sync, as its pricing is prohibitive; and ads (in general) 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…
Is it just me or does Sync’s pricing seem… Exorbitantly high?
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.
Instead of hacking Sync to remove the ads, why not spend the same time helping with a free app to add the features you want?
I don’t have free time to start a project like that, removing ads from an apk is trivial.
There are plenty of FOSS apps for Lemmy out there, no need to “start” any project, just lend a hand
Nah… I don’t think that’s for me 👍
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.
Infinity for Lemmy works really well despite its early development status: https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy/releases
Based on the other comments, I definitely don’t think you’re alone.
Plus dev seems deaf to the feedback.
