this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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Android

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (8 children)

It's live for me. It appears that the paid version, "Sync Ultra", requires a $2/month subscription, or $17/year. Seeing as lemmy APIs are free, I am confused why this is so expensive? o_0

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean it takes the developer time and effort to make the app, and he doesn't benefit from any ad-revenue. It's just paying for some nice features to support the work and effort of an awesome dev.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Why come so many other excellent free apps but this one ads and money tho

Also why need data?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

A lot of the are Bibby enthusiast projects while sync continues the lineage of a well established app.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To show some support!

I mean, we're already browsing ad free on here and many developers are making their apps in their free time. I get that this are expensive times, but if no-one would subscribe to such apps. There would be much less developers.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So how would you feel about Lemmy instance hosters adding ads, harvesting user data to sell to third partiess, making paid subscription models to remove said ads they added and then charging for API access?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We spoke about it with Ruud on Discord actually. He's fine with it. Most people understand that nothing comes for free.

Actually, it is even a nice gesture from the developer. The ones who cannot afford it can still use the app, without paying for it.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm not suggesting that they should or even can be forced to change or that lemmy.world admins actually do anything differently.

It's also not about the cost or not being able to afford it. It is about principles and and the ad driven business model being antithetical to the goals of Lemmy. Being federated is one thing, but it is also about moving away from ads. I am fully in support of nearly any monetization of software other than ads and selling user data.

Personally I just can't understand the person who would agree that Reddit was being egregiously corporate minded and greedy to the point that they move to Lemmy and then be ok with adding ads were there previously were none. I'm definitely not going to be using it and I don't even care that much despite my comments here if other people do. I just want to make this point known. I don't want Lemmy to become Reddit all over again and I felt there was a bit of an honor system in place to not do things like that and it has already been broken.

Another point of contention with ads is that everyone is generating the content for free that Sync is injecting ads next to. I don't want to help them make money off of something I do as a hobby even if it is only pennies. This is one of the main reasons I won't use Reddit and have been favor of the federated internet.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

That's the great thing about the fediverse. If you don't like the management of an instance, you can just move to a different instance. If the Lemmy.world admins decide to put ads on their instance, then you can just move.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It appears IAP are coming later and I assume they will just disable ads for 5€ or something. Just like the original app.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The option to remove ads has been added - it costs $20 USD. The lifetime Ultra costs $100 USD.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Idk what the plan is for Lemmy, but at least in the original Reddit version, ultra cost more because it also includes things like translation services that required third party server space

There's a simple ad-free version pending approval I think that I assume will probably just cost the usual dollar or five

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

It costs 22 euro to remove ads for me, I find that too steep.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It's moderately expensive actually at more like $20 (depending on location) but I'm happy to pay it - it's a great app.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Bruh, you can't spare two whole dollars for something you're going to be using every day? Like, I use Jerboa, which is free, but I still signed up for dessalines patreon to support their work.

The future is either free to use, but put up with ads, or pay a meager amount to support the developers so ads arent required to sustain the product.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Bruh, you can’t spare two whole dollars for something you’re going to be using every day?

Or, we can just like ...buy it once...like most other software that isn't tied to a first-party hosted service?

The future is either free to use, but put up with ads, or pay a meager amount to support the developers so ads arent required to sustain the product.

I'd like to unsubscribe from your vision of the future

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There will be an In-App Purchase later on. Keep in mind this is a beta and not the full release. For the beta the option is ads or ultra. For the full release it will be ads, pro (one time purchase) or ultra (subscription).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

IMO that's a good way to go

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

FYI there will be a one time payment option once the app is out of beta.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

In this scenario you'd pay for updates though right?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm somewhat with you on this, but most software that's updating its pricing or is new, is using a subscription model. 2$ really is fine I think, even less with the yearly thing. I'd still like to see a OTP

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The developer has confirmed on Discord that the one-time lifetime payment is planned for the full release.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's nice to hear!

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

These prices are for Ultra. Ultra is voluntary and only for super fans to support the developer. There will be a pro version that is a one time payment and it removes all the ads and is very affordable. But the developer didn't want to start charging for the Pro version while bugs still exist and is waiting for the Beta to be over.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The option to remove ads has been added - it costs $20 USD. The lifetime Ultra costs $100 USD.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm confused how $17 is considered expensive. If that was a monthly price it would be expensive. $17 for a year? Cheapest subscription I've ever paid for, and I'm happy to do it as a subscription to continually support the developer.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Well it is cheap for people living in developed countries but in developing countries where the exchange rate vs the dollar is high and the average income is lower, the cost of the subscription is substantial. Yes we should support the developer but unfortunately this subscription model is unfeasible for some people.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

While I hate subscription models, I actually paid the yearly subscription for this (fyi $27.99 in Australia.

One of the main reasons I paid is because I used Sync for Reddit multiple times a day for years and wanted to support the developer. If the fedeverse fails to take off at scale I won't renew for additional years.

$28 is a small price to pay on my behalf to thank the developer for all his previous work, but also support further development. It's high quality apps like this that help drive traffic to the excellent communities that are reestablishing themselves in the fedeverse.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

everything works great without ultra- not sure why you'd need that

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It is indeed beautifully designed. By far the best looking client I've seen yet.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I completely agree with someone trying to make some money off of their app, but when it comes to Lemmy I can't agree with injecting ads just so people have to pay to remove them. If it were just about the added bonus features then it would be a lot more acceptable.

Lemmy doesn't have ads and the instance hosters rely entirely on donations.

I must say, this is pretty uncool of Sync for Lemmy developers.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Moreover, it looks like it's gathering user info to third parties like messages, device or other IDs? Hmm 🤔

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If true that is a real deal breaker for me. The whole idea of Lemmy is to break away from exploitative data gathering from corporations. If they are data gathering to sell to third parties then what makes them any different than Reddit? 🫤

If I had to guess most of that info is just to feed you ads, but that is already bad enough for me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I think we can all make our own conclusions. I mean, don't get me wrong, the app looks great. But I think the subscription model and the data gathering maybe isn't the right approach in this instance, since we're talking about a different culture in Lemmy. This is not Reddit. I'd be happy with a simple, straight app purchase with no bs data mining, thank you very much.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Those are the ads SDK, which is disabled if you subscribe to ultra or pay a one time purchase to remove ads (available later when the app is out of beta).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What makes you think it's gathering that data?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

LOL this is not how you gather data in a mobile app. There isn't a GATHER_USER_DATA permission 🤣🤣🤣

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Ok then, how do you think it's getting the user's location data without access to the location permission, wifi, or Bluetooth?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago