• Nora@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    This discourse in these comments is stupid. People can complain about Sync if they have something to complain about. It’s a fucking forum. Personally I hate the idea of restricting features and using ads to get people to pay, especially when I have several FOSS apps that work perfectly for me, I don’t think Sync feels any more “slick”.

    There, that’s my opinion. I don’t like Sync and I’m not attacking anyone for using it.

    • unscholarly_source@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      As a Sync user, I support this comment. The fact that these debates occur is precisely due to the fact that people have the freedom of choice, and that’s something to celebrate.

      Sync doesn’t have to be “better” or “worse” than other apps and vice versa. People should pick what they like. I pick it because it feels like home after having used it for almost 10 years. Doesn’t mean it’s better.

    • CandyDumDub@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I fully agree! I have no idea why would I need to pay $20 for an app when I have a bunch of alternatives that I like even more. Welp, I even like to use a browser instead of an app sometimes. But people are excited and are going to Lemmy, which is a good thing

      • tacosplease@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Damn I loved Sync for reddit. Paid like $3 for the pro version, removing ads. Not sure I can make myself pay $20 though. Something like $5-$8 would be more reasonable.

        • negativeyoda@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I hear you but I also paid like $3-5 for pro and used it daily for years. It probably works out to pennies per month if you do the math. I don’t get the sense LJDawson is lighting cigars with $100 bills. With the old model he got paid the price of a coffee… once. I’d imagine that a subscription model at least guarantees him a somewhat regular income stream that hopefully helps beyond beer money every so often

          • Trapping5341@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That my outlook on it. I bought the pro version in like 2013 for 4 or 5 bucks. Didn’t give him a penny again until ultra came out and I got the monthly on that for a grand total of like $20. I can see why it may be a turn off for new users but for me it’s just paying back what I already got from LJ.

        • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Not sure if you have tried voyager yet, but it has been great for me. It’s a PWA, so you can install it to your phone homescreen from the browser. All of the kinks seem to be pretty ironed out by now.

          Completely ad free and monetarily free, as well.

          To be fair, though, I never used sync. I used RIF for reddit, and I haven’t missed it since I found Voyager.

      • VCTRN@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        No one says you need to, in fact you don’t, but many people keep bitching like they are forced to.

    • Kogasa@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      People can complain about Sync if they have something to complain about.

      Okay. I have something to complain about, too. It’s people complaining too much about Sync.

      • dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        I get complaining about the price, I get being a FOSS diehard, but there are are a handful of accounts that are so insanely mad about Sync and commenting/posting about it so much that they genuinely can’t be mentally well.

    • zeroxxx@lemmy.my.id
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      1 year ago

      Ye, I loved Sync for Reddit, bought pro and dev even, but current Sync monetization is insane enough to alienate me.

      Whatever people want to use do not concern me.

      • And009@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        Youtube premium is $2/month in my country, sync is one time $25… Would have to say it’s kinda expensive and not buying it anytime soon.

    • Stumblinbear@pawb.social
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      1 year ago

      They aren’t using ads to “get people to pay” they’re using ads to pay for people who don’t want to pay

      • Nora@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Yes, the ads make a little money. But it’s still a problem you create then sell the solution to. It’s at least half the reason to do ads.

        • Stumblinbear@pawb.social
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          1 year ago

          Not really. The alternative is charging for the app in the first place, but if you do that your app fails. You include ads to help pay for development and ongoing expenses.

          Offering a subscription to remove them for those that want to is secondary to that. Very few people actually subscribe to anything at all unless they absolutely have to. You’d be surprised to learn how few users actually pay to remove ads–like oftentimes less than one percent

            • Stumblinbear@pawb.social
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              1 year ago

              Do bless me with your knowledge, then. Donations don’t work. You don’t want ads. You don’t want subscription fees. People hate paying for apps.

              There is no other option other than working for free.

              • Nora@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                Donations work. The dev clearly has many loyal fans willing to pay. Look at Jerboa/Lemmy’s donation pages. It’s good money.

                Besides this I’m not even saying the dev shouldn’t do it. I’m just explaining that I don’t like it.

                I gladly donate to FOSS software devs because the product never forces me to log in for a feature or get a key or see an ad. The app doesn’t get any of the bloat required to do that stuff either. I just don’t want to use Sync and it’s not because I’m cheap

                • Stumblinbear@pawb.social
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                  1 year ago

                  It’s good money.

                  The Lemmy dev is making around 30k a year. Subtract taxes from that and he’s making maybe 25k (at best).

                  They’re very clearly extremely talented software engineers, and you’re telling me $12 an hour is “good money”? That’s not even above minimum wage in many US states! Do you have any idea how much software engineers make?

    • ruckblack@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Which open source app do you feel is just as slick as sync? Genuine question. I’d be happy to support a FOSS app, but all that I found had weird issues and quirks, and/or janky UI. Liftoff was the best I’d found but again, buggy and janky.

      • Nora@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I’m still just using Jerboa. It was buggy when I first used it but a few updates later it does it all fine.

  • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Yeah, because why should app developers get paid, right? They should all code for free at their local public library. Maybe live in a big ceramic jar like Diogenes.

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      “Free” as in “freedom”, not price. There’s nothing stopping somebody from making money on FOSS.

      Goddam Richard Stallman really screwed the PR up on that one with the “free” thing.

      • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        The F in FOSS stands for free, IIRC. The ability to access, use, share the code, etc. has more to do with the open source part of the acronym. I haven’t really seen anyone complain about Sync being closed sourced so far… Just that you have to pay not to see ads.

        Ive only ever seen FOSS developers get support through donations. Which is nice and all, but likely not enough for an independent developer like ljdawson to survive on alone.

        Dont get me wrong, I like FOSS apps too, but the experience almost always suffers to some degree; its easy to see why. I just don’t get why Sync is being singled out like some kind of evil tech monopoly lately. As far as I can tell, its just an individual developer who released a great app for free (yes with ads, you’re the product, blah blah blah) with an optional lifetime payment to disable ads completely.

          • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            Well then what’s the issue? Because every complaint I’ve seen so far has been about the optional monetary facet.

            • Captain Beyond@linkage.ds8.zone
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              1 year ago

              I think people are complaining about ads because ads imply tracking. I don’t know, I use Jerboa because I value the four freedoms, I’m not out here protesting non-free apps because the free apps work well enough for me.

              • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                AFAIK the way ad revenue works is dependent on trackers. Paying to remove ads on Sync also removes all trackers according to many people who have tested it; still seems to come down to not wanting to pay the developer.

                Which is fine, of course. I just think framing the app as sketchy or something is completely misguided.

                • 30p87@feddit.de
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                  1 year ago

                  Are Sync Free and Sync Paid Edition separate apps? Because if not, you still have some ad publishers framework on your phone and running. I’d guess it’s Google, which means play services are required. That’s a big no-go for degoogled Linux users.

          • Franklin@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I wouldn’t sweat it too much, The fact that someone could make money on this gets in the way of their narrative.

            I don’t really mind that sync is closed source you should be able to have the freedom to use whatever you want and all it is is more choice but I’ll be damned if I’m going to use it.

          • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            Like who? Making an actual living I mean, not just collecting small donations to ‘buy them a coffee’ or whatever.

            Not saying you’re wrong, but some examples would be welcome.

            • itsJoelle@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              See: RedHat devs and all the FOSS orgs that actually pay devs to work on their shit.

              Google, Meta, and AMD have people on their to team they pay for development on FOSS projects because their operations rely upon them, so they have a vested interest in maintaining them.

              • ech0@lemdro.id
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                1 year ago

                He means provide an example of a single indie Dev doing it. You’re being obtuse because you know that there’s no one.

                • itsJoelle@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I don’t understand. I reread back to the top comment and went down the chain. They made a rhetorical question about how devs of software being paid. Someone clarified the definition of Foss. Then there was a an inquiry about how someone could make a living with FOSS software and another commenter claiming millions do it (which a majority are these exact devs I pointed out).

                  I simply gave the list, that’s all.

              • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                So the best solution to make a living as a FOSS developer is to… Work for some giant tech monopoly who engages in sketchy consumer practices on a regular basis?

                AFAIK Sync was created by a single person, so I doubt he’s getting paid by anyone other than fans of the app and ad revenue. I’ll look into RedHat though, I appreciate you taking the time to provide an actual example.

                • itsJoelle@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Not a problem. Also FOSS orgs pay their devs as well. Off the top of my head OS developers with a large userbase often pay their devs through donations to foundations that fund the project. Often donors are companies as well, but it gives a developer the option to get paid without working for a massive company.

                  (I suppose indirectly they do, but that’s a whole different ball of wax)

            • newIdentity@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Blender, Wikipedia, Linux, RedHat and even the project you’re using right now: Lemmy

              There actually are a lot of people making a living out of making open source projects

              • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                Ill admit im not very familiar with blender, linux, or redhat, so ill look into those – thank you.

                My understanding is that nobody owns lemmy, rather people own the instances that make up lemmy. Which is definitely in the spirit of FOSS, but based on my understanding (happy to be proven wrong) I dont think its accurate to say the creators of Lemmy are making a living from it. You can donate to the admins of the instances you use, I suppose.

                Likewise, isn’t the main source of income for Wikipedia donations? They ask me for one every time I’m on the site.

                So other than semantics, what’s really the difference in making a donation to a service like Wikipedia, and paying for Sync? You can think of paying to remove ads as a donation if that helps, but the fact remains that lemmy is already available for free, and is much smaller than organizations like Wikipedia or Linux. Dude has got to eat.

                • newIdentity@sh.itjust.works
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                  1 year ago

                  Nope. The devs make a living out of it. They work on Lemmy full time. They are sponsored by NLnet and are paid for every feature they implement

                • newIdentity@sh.itjust.works
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                  Compleatly forgot to answer your other quesntion:

                  Yes the main income is donations. The difference is that you don’t need to pay if you can’t afford it and people who donate are generally paying more on average. The huge difference is that everyone has access to everything without paying.

                  Imagine what would happen if you would have to pay to use Wikipedia: nobody would use it. The content is made by users and if they would have made it a paid encyclopedia it wouldn’t have any users.

      • 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        It’s more a limitation of the english language… No distinction between free as in beer or free as in freedom… We’re stuck with the same word

    • CurlyMoustache@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ve tried a few of the other apps, and didn’t like them that much. Sync is the first one I actually liked. Not sure if I want to pay for it, though

      • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        In my experience you can have:

        1. Good app that is free with ads,
        2. Good app that is paid without ads,
        3. Shit to mediocre app that is free without ads.

        I’ve tried many alternatives, but so far the intuitiveness and beautiful UX of Sync stand apart from the competition for me. I respect FOSS apps, and even prefer them in some cases. But let’s not pretend that its the best approach for every developer, or that anyone who releases a non-FOSS app is automatically greedy or sketchy.

    • Fazoo@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      The hate would stem from the utter spam of every possible fucking instance with “Hey, Sync is out and the fucking best!! Spend your money!”

        • krotti@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Paying for a product is not a bad thing, but yeah obviously there are issues with something not being FOSS…

            • krotti@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Proprietary and FOSS software both have a place, otherwise I would like to ask anyone against proprietary software for bank statements of FOSS donations or “Can you make a better one free”.

              There isn’t a lot of great FOSS software just because there isn’t much funding… Regardless, I am on the same page, that I’d much rather use FOSS software.

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          1 year ago

          Almost like they could all get excited in a mega thread… We did it for Musk spam.

  • Digester@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’ve tried pretty much all the FOSS Lemmy apps I could get my hands on but the experience Sync provides is far superior. I’m an ex Boost user and since I couldn’t find Boost for Lemmy I naturally gravitated towards Sync and I’m not looking back.

      • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, that’s what I’ve been waiting for. But with Sync ready and so many other free options, I’m worried that by the time it comes out, I’ll already have transitioned to something else. Have you heard anything about an ETA for the app?

    • CobraChicken@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Sync definitely is far superior. $2 and change per month is more than reasonable to keep developing an app I use so much.

    • itsmistermoon@feddit.cl
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      1 year ago

      I’m currently jumping between Memmy, Bean, Lemmios and Avelon. Dropped Thunder, Liftoff, Olympus and Lemmotif. There’s actually a lot of options going around, not to mention the several other WPAs being developed too.

  • SGG@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Product is king.

    Inertia is also in play.

    Sync for Lemmy is built by the same guy that built sync for Reddit. Built using seemingly a lot of the same code.

    I bounced between all the open source apps and have started using sync for Lemmy because it’s familiar and it works. It also seems to be much faster than the others, maybe due to more aggressive caching/prefetching? Or that could be a placebo effect.

    I was always having weird issues with jebora and the rest of them, and was not a fan of Voyager’s interface.

    I might try connect, jebora, etc again a bit later. Might also purchase the one time and remove for sync, might donate to Lemmy instances, etc.

    For now I’m just glad to have a familiar interface.

  • CoLa666@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Seeing the Sync for lemmy pricing, I just sent 20 USD to the Lemmy/Jerboa devs for offering all this for free!

    • gkd@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I think the “hot take” that needs to be said here - and surprisingly I have not come across it yet - is that it’s totally fine if you’re willing to pay 20 dollars for the app.

      However, please remember that the app itself is not self contained. It relies on the hard work of the Lemmy developers and the instance you use staying online. Please consider sending them some money as well down the line. If you get the app for 20 dollars as a one time payment, maybe some future payments - even if considerably smaller - can go towards the latter.

      • crisisingot@beehaw.org
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        I’m using Sync free version and $20 seems pretty steep for me. I like it but not sure about that price compared to ad free versions of other apps.

        I am already donating to my instance though 😄

    • FuckSpez@lemmy.one
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      I did the opposite. The moment I saw Sync for Lemmy available to download I installed it and immediately purchased Ultra because bless LJ for making the superior app. He deserves getting paid for his work. And it’s not like he requires you to pay for the app. It’s free for everyone, you just get some additional features if you are willing to pay and by doing that you also support the developer. So I decided to support him. I’ve been using Sync for Reddit before and I knew I needed this app for Lemmy. Now I feel home.

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    1 year ago

    I have Sync and Thunder for now. I love thunder for the Flutter, but sync just works perfectly.

    Maybe they’ll catch up someday, but I’m okay paying for software now and then.