My reply to all the naysayers:
Thanks for making Lemmy feel like home, it wouldn’t without you!
The reality is it’s a free world, regardless of what morality you put on things there are going to be things that happen that you don’t like. That’s life.
Like it or not Lemmy has had explosive growth because of apps like Sync. Because of them being killed off by Reddit. If it weren’t for the drama of Reddit doing that, I and millions of other users wouldn’t be here right now as we’d still be on Reddit.
Even people who weren’t using the 3rd party apps left Reddit because Reddit’s actions left a bad taste in their mouths.
So, morality of one guy charging for his honest work in creating the paid or ad supported app aside, you should be thanking the apps including sync for helping drive so many users to Lemmy.
If you yourself don’t want to use a paid app, then that’s okay! We’re all allowed to respond or react to things how we want, but being incredibly divisive for something that a lot of people wanted and that really is inconsequential is almost universally frowned on.
Just let people do what they want and don’t shoot them down for it. More options for browsing Lemmy = more Lemmings = more content.
Much love my dudes! We may disagree on this but we agree on many many many more things I’m sure, just because we’re on Lemmy instead of Reddit in the first place is proof of that! ✌️
I’m absolutely thrilled to have sync on the Fediverse, and will happily pay for a yearly subscription to help ensure LJD has sufficient compensation to keep the app up-to-date with whatever changes come to the Android/Lemmy APIs years down the road.
The problem with (even excellent) free apps for platforms like this, is they require consistent maintenance to keep up with both the platform they run on (Android), and the platform they serve content for (Lemmy). That is not a trivial amount of work, and is absolutely deserving of continued, recurring compensation IMO.
A one-time payment might make sense for a simple native game that gets produced once, has no web component, and never needs another update for its entire lifetime, but not for this. You aren’t paying for a singular product, you’re paying for a service. You wouldn’t go to the barber and winged about needing to pay every time I get my hair cut.
As a software engineer I find it miraculous the amount of people that whine about somebody wanting to get paid for putting weeks, months, and years of their life into a product 100s of thousands of people CHOOSE to use.
Have been using the Sync reddit app daily for years after paying a couple of quid to remove ads whenever I did that. Felt like a steal then and expensive now so, on balance, I’m comfortable having paid the ad randsome. I feel better knowing it all goes to the developer for his personal efforts.
Paying is fine, it’s the SHIT TON OF THIRD PARTY TRACKERS they put in the app that worry me
They get completely disabled if you pay, that’s the point. I haven’t got a single tracking ping on my PiHole, I bought adfree.
Wait… you pay for sync not to spy on you?
I hope boost doesn’t go the same way.
I paid for Sync to toss some money to a dev responsible for the #1 used app on any of my phones for the last 10 years. I paid a criminally low amount back then for how much I used the app.
It happened to also come with ad removal, but I block those and trackers on my network anyway.
Sync is no spying no shit, google ads spy as much as they do in any other site or app you use
My trust was already broken. These lemmy instances come free of charge, free of ads and free of trackers, and this pig of a dev comes around and pulls out an à la spez shenanigan and everyone praises him. He should be keelhauled. And the lemmy servers should block apps that insert ads unless they share profits. I’d be happy to pay for features that add to lemmy, not for features that were taken away. Fuck sync for lemmy. There, i said it
Freeloader. Enjoy your free stuff off the backs of people doing all the work and paying all the bills.
Freeloading, hmm?
When was the last time you made a unprompted decision to donate to the Lemmy devs?
I didn’t use Sync with reddit but since it’s the best one for Lemmy… Here I am! On Sync! Enjoying it!
Personally, I don’t give a flying fuck what client any of you use as long as you are here. :)
Remember folks whether you choose to use sync or another lemmy app none of us are using reddits shitty mobile app and in that way we are all winners
Honestly I’m using, and especially posting on, Lemmy much more often now that I have sync back.
I had been using Sync for Reddit for so many years that it became muscle memory. Now I have it back and things just feel right.
People care too much about which app you use. At the end of the day, as long as you’re happy with sync it shouldn’t matter
I agree, just wish they would stop mentioning how their app is “just so great and only $20 to get no ads” in every single thread and every other post on every instance
Oh man, Sync is just so great and only $20 to get no ads you should give it a try!
Play store link: Sync for Lemmy
My comment to that is in every single thread and every other post on every other instance someone is saying how sync is ad filled and tracker heavy. So let’s just all agree to never talk about apps, ever.
But that’s more in response to people saying it cost over 100$ to remove ads and it has trackers.
The ultra life time cost 100$, it stops the ads and also comes with some extra features that isn’t needed to enjoy sync.
For 20$ the ads will stop and the trackers will be disabled.
Why would you need to pay $20 to access free content? Devs don’t pay any creator who makes you scroll Lemmy. They are useless and sell you air.
You don’t need to do anything, just keep on using the FOSS apps. It’s all good. It’s all about having choice.
The content isn’t really “free” the people running the servers need to be paid also. If nobody would donate or they don’t use any other form of getting funds, the servers wouldn’t last.
Sync just provides a way to get to content in a nice polished way, at least that’s how experience it. I could watch ads but I paid for a more better experience.
Both need to make money to eat and keep things running.
When you take a taxi to see a movie, nobody thinks that the taxi driver shouldn’t be paid.
It does seem like a large number of Lemmy users are elitist snobs. I thought this place was turning out better than Reddit, but it’s looking like I was wrong. People like that ruin platforms like this and sour the experience.
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Not wanting to use any app that goes to a google server for a lemmy app is being privacy focused. Telling other people their preference in not valuing the same thing is wrong is elitism - saying that no app should do something, and nobody else should use an app that does that thing, because you prefer it that way - that’s elitism.
Sync and the people who like it aren’t invalid just because your preference is being privacy focused.
Along the same lines, it’s totally possible to espouse the values of privacy to others without being elitist, as long as you aren’t talking down to other people or invalidating other people’s preferences, because that’s elitism.
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