Not hating on open source, just let people use what fits their expectations and needs and stop deterring them with gatekeeping :P
UX = user experience
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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Go ahead and reread my comment.
You might use Lemmy for 100% free, but you're being subsidized by the rest of us who pay the hosts to keep these instances alive. THAT is why Lemmy doesn't have ads.
First off, you say the rest of us. Do you support lemmy financially yourself? (Genuine question, not trying to call you our or anything)
But that same thing can be said about all open-source software. I don't fully get your point. The reason the whole sync thing feels wrong to me is just because all that expensive fancy stuff, whether server hosting or the framework and protocol itself, isn't the service you're paying for. All that is free for the end user. Paying for essentially just the UI seems odd. It'd be like having a desktop environment for Linux that's paid only.
I sure do support my instance! And to be clear I'm not trying to be an asshole or be argumentative for no reason. I know I'm acerbic and flippant, but I'm really not trying to just be a contrarian asshole.
If you don't mind the UX as is, this is true. However. For a lot of people (myself included) Lemmy as it is, is annoying as hell to use. The interface is downright bad at times and most of the 3rd party apps are hot garbage that work when they feel like it. For some people, the web app is great, or Jerboa is great, or whatever iOS client is great (I'm on Android).
Good for them! But for others, they're willing to pay a dev to make a UX that they like. That's literally all it is. There's a group of users who really like what Dawson did with Reddit, and asked him to port that to Lemmy. That's important; he didn't do this for no reason. He cashed in his chips when the API fuckery happened, and only built Sync for Lemmy because there was demand.
And your analogy is apt! There are paid Linux distros; Zorin comes to mind immediately. Despite the fact that you can download any distro you want (or even build your own environment from scratch) there's value in paying a dev to build a better interface. It's as simple as that.