Liftoff!

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A mobile client for Lemmy running on iOS and Android

founded 1 year ago

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Appreciation post for Liftoff not collecting user data or injecting ads. (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I was looking forward to trying Sync today now that it's live, but my enthusiasm was immediately dampened after seeing the "Data Safety" section on the Google Play store.

Liftoff has been great, and want to say thanks for making an awesome app. This will continue to be my daily driver.

Edit: for clarity, because the post got way bigger than I expected.

Sync looks like a fantastic app, and the dev/s should charge whatever they feel is fair for their efforts, even if that's through the usual ads + ad tracking.

My intent was just to post here in /c/Liftoff to thank the Liftoff devs for managing to somehow offer an awesome app without any of that.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, one glance at the terms of use had me uninstalling the app. I don't feel like "decentralized social media" and "sale of personal data" pair well together.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's like people are trying to misinterpret.

Liftoff is strictly using Lemmy's free API and for the developer 5 users or 5M users doesn't make a difference to his expenses.

The Sync developer is obviously trying to do something more ambitious.

It's great that we have FOSS apps that do a decent job but we shouldn't look down on developers who put a lot of time, effort, and money into something expecting to make a return on their investment.

I don't like data collecting either but I accept that if you want to offer a free version - it's inevitable. What I hate is when you're not able to pay for ads to go away.

But I might be biased as I'm a developer myself and would hate to put 8-9 weeks of hard work into delivering a great app and then get hate for wanting to get something in return for that work.

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

I am honestly fine with giving these permissions for a free version of the app as I understand the developers need to monetize with ads for the free version. What I would like to see though that the paid version with subscription is another app that does not ask for these permissions. If I am paying for the app to remove ads and/or get additional paid features, the app seemingly still collects that data. As a user I have no way to tell what the developer is doing with that data. Is it only to retain sessions / enable features or is my data being given to third parties regardless if I pay or not

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

It asks for consent to personalize ads / sell your data, you can say no. I did, and I just see a black square with "Sponsored Content" in the centre, no ad, probably a bug.

You can also pay for the version without ads; there's Ultra, but Sync Pro one time purchase will be available soon.