Please put your money where your mouth is.
Sync Ultra is a very reasonable $17 a YEAR. YouTube Premium is reaching that per MONTH. I have sync downloaded and it was the first thing I did. Thanks lj for the beautiful app.
[EDIT: That was a poor comparison, as pointed out in the comments. Leaving it for discussion sake.
There are many counterpoints and actually good discussion happening down below. Even if you don't agree, thanks for showing me a different perspective!
If you want to support Sync, make sure to support the Lemmy Devs and your instance holders as well!
*This post was made early in the day before the update added the OTP option.]
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What's more infuriating is that Lemmy itself doesn't have ads but Sync has, sadly.
I understand, but the dev works on this app full time so he has to earn a living somehow. Even the core Lemmy devs are able to work on Lemmy full time because they got some funding from a grant.
In my recollection sync for reddit had multiple long gaps in communication from the dev, including pretty shortly after subscriptions were first announced. I appreciate the desire to be paid, but I didn't find it clear that there were ongoing development or support efforts.
He took a few months off here or there for irl issues. I've been using Sync for nearly a decade, my personal opinion is that the drama is overblown. Even if he disappeared I would have gotten my money's worth out of the app, I used it daily for 1 - 2 hours a day.
Agreed, I've been using sync since 2016 and yeah the Dev disappeared here and there for a bit but it was always for personal reasons. Shit happens. The drama was definitely a bit much IMO.
That being said, I'm absolutely sick of everything turning into subscriptions, I'll wait for either the lifetime option or just removing ads.
Oye, Timothy
Oye beltalowda, fo keng to im gut.
I mean i agree the dev should be paid for the work. But it just seems a bit odd to require a subscription to remove ads using a service that does not have ads or backend cost from a api. I think there should be no ads or at the very least a one time purchase to remove just ads. Like I understand a subscription for like power user features. And i am not some cheap ass complaining I have probably given the dev 100+ dollars in support between patreon, ultra subscription, ultra lifetime purchases.
But the dev already confirmed that they'll put a one time payment for removing ads though, just not in this beta release.
That information should be front and centre.
Yeah LJ clearly underestimated how much people hate subscriptions here
Really should have checked any thread on lemmy.ml about Sync then.
But when you serve ads on a platform that doesn't have ads, why would I use the ad enabled app when I can just go on the actual site?
Everyone needs to make their own decision but IMO Sync’s UI is a million times better than the actual site even with ads.
But there are tons of other third party apps that are ad free that are just as good as Sync.
No, I'm with you. I had Sync Pro for Reddit and would happily do the same here. Like you, I just don't want another subscription.
I'll admit to being a bit confused because I've been using sync for a couple of hours now and have yet to see an ad myself.
I’ve seen ads but I have also seen empty ad placeholders.
I've noticed that no ads are shown when you disable all tracking and reject cookies. Might be EU only though.
I'm Canadian, dunno if we'd have a similar effect.
Yeah I just started using it and I haven't seen an ad. I know what ads for Sync looked like on Reddit, too.
Yeah, I'm not too happy about that. I'll give this a few days, at least, but I can't stand ads. It never occurred to me that they would be brought in for a platform that otherwise has none. I paid for a lifetime subscription on Sync for Reddit. For Lemmy, Connect is close enough to the Sync experience that I'm about to say fuck this and go back to it.
I am happy as well with Voyager as web app for both Android and PC.
Same here. I would buy lifetime again but I'm done with subs.
https://lemm.ee/comment/1774742
Guys, chill. It's just the first public beta. At least give a man a few weeks to iron things out. Geez.
subscriptions based services are mostly about cash grabbing. I really hate it that you have to pay a subscription to use a software. I'll purchase any software for a reasonable price but I'd never subscribe for a software product like this.
You don't "host" the front end development of the client though.
It still takes dev time, and that's expensive, and this is the beta implementation. Lj said he plans to add the lifetime option, but for this first release, he did not include it as he wanted to see how lemmy held up first. If this all died out in a couple weeks after the api changes from reddit, it would have been pointless. This allows for those of us who want to support the development now to enable him to focus full time. With thousands of users vs. the millions reddit had having a dollar purchase to remove ads, it just wouldn't scale right now to make this a feasible full-time project.
Everything is a subscription because users demand their software be updated on a consistent basis. That's the nature of software development.
Exactly. A lot of people fail to see this.
The problem is how apps are bought on mobile now.
With PC applications, you’d buy a specific version and you would maybe get updates for a year. Then the developer would release an update and you would decide whether it was worth buying the update for the new enhancements. If it wasn’t then you’d stick with the old version until the next new version and make the choice again. This way the developer gets paid regularly by new and existing users if they produce a good app.
On mobile, you buy an app and expect to get updates for the life of the app. The developer is expected to keep producing updates whether the app is complete or not otherwise their app is labelled as dead. They only get paid by new users.
That second model is simply not sustainable from the developer’s point of view for any reasonably sized app so they need to think of ways to make it work. There are only two options which are ads and subscriptions and people don’t like either.
Of course, PC apps are also moving to subscriptions to remove the option that you used to have to not pay them for a year or two if they’re not providing good enough updates.
Fuck it, third
First thing I did after opening the app was to look for the Pro (ultra) in-app purchase. But monhtly payments, no thank you.
Yea, I would gladly pay to remove ads. Like I already did for the Sync for Reddit. Twice. But no one likes subscriptions.
Same here. I hate subscriptions but would happily buy a Pro version like I did with Sync for Reddit.
What would you be willing to pay? I paid £4 for Sync in 2018. I can't imagine a Pro (non-ultra) version would be that cheap this time.
At the minimum I'd think it'd match 1 year of Ultra (£17). Not sure if I'd pay that for Lemmy since I still use Sync for Reddit more.
Realistically, it would need to be higher than 1 year of Ultra, unless it only included some of the perks of Ultra. If it was priced the same for 1 year vs Lifetime, very few users would pay for the yearly sub.
Personally, I'm happy to keep paying the monthly sub to support LJ, if the development stalls or even stops completely, I'll be stopping my subscription. I'm happy to provide continuous support for apps that I use daily if it means that the development continues.
New update Beta 25 dropped. Ad removal IAP is $12.99 USD.
Edit: increased to $19.99 USD
Edit 2: Ultra lifetime IAP added in Beta 26 for $99.99 USD
I'm seeing 19.99.....???
I suspect he may be A/B testing pricing. I could have sworn I saw $12.99 for the Ad Removal IAP earlier, but it's showing $19.99 now.
Even $12.99 felt high just to remove ads. Especially when compared to previous Sync Pro pricing.
I also suspect there may be some testing of the appetite for higher pricing for early adopters... with the potential to lower pricing later for mass audience appeal.
I think we're seeing a lot of long-time Sync users (who came from Sync for Reddit), so that audience is probably a bit more amenable to higher pricing to support the developer, but this pricing doesn't seem competitive with the broader Lemmy community.
Which is in line with my comment, I was simply saying that Ultra Lifetime will most likely cost more than Ultra Yearly.
Yeah, same here. It is a shame :(
I'm really confused why people feel this way. Can't you just cancel it if you feel like it's not worth it anymore?
I just don't do subscriptions. One of the aspects I hated about my foray into the Apple app store where everything seemed to be subscription or ads. Quickly missed Android and places like f-droid where I knew I could find ad free and subscription free open source alternatives.
I was happy to pay for apps like Procreate and Lumafusion though, so it's not that I'm against paying for ads. I just don't do subscriptions.
I generally do not do subscriptions either, but I do make some exceptions for specific apps/services. At least for me, Sync is one of those for now.
When I think about it I think it's mainly been web hosting type services where data is being streamed or stored on the cloud that I've been fine with subscriptions for. And then not so much for pure software preferring more pay once and then pay for a new version update down the line type of approach like Office 2021 for example over Office 365. Although, I've moved mostly to libreoffice.
Same for games. I'd rather pay Diablo 4 $70 over paying for PS+ or game pass. Chose to forgo online multiplayer than pay for PS+ on my PS4 last Gen. Generally preferred a large one time lump sum than small monthly payments for things, since I suppose I just a distaste for adding more monthly expenses to the already growing list of monthly expenses.
Plus, how many years do you think Diablo 4 will be supported with updates/patches? At $17/year Sync will be just as expensive after a few years and doesn't exactly have the same development team size or cost as something like Diablo...
Completely fair point.
Unless the app offers you cloud functions like email, cloud storage, multi-player gaming, or social media sites(lemmy, kbin, mastodon), etc. I see subscriptions as a no-go.
Sync does have some cloud features (and I suspect push notifications will be one of them soon), but yeah, I understand paying for them isn't for everyone.
That's a very good point. Software as a product should have a different pricing model than software as a service.
I usually hate subscriptions that try to squeeze you for money.
In the case of sync, I see it as a recurring donation for LJ. 15 bucks is what I make in like 20 minutes as an engineer myself, so 'paying' 20 minutes of my salary to a developer of such an awesome app is no problem for me.
I think Christian with Apollo went with a much better approach where he didn't put in any ads, but limited the app to only being able to use one account and putting a limit to the filter list. But, you could buy the pro version to remove those limits and he put in subscription options too. If subscription is to be pushed his approach felt like the most tasteful way to go.
I gladly pay subscriptions for services. I see that the Ultra has cloud backup of settings, but how much storage could that possibly use? Certainly not $2/mo worth. For that price I'll want the equivalent of 100Gb of storage in the cloud.
edit: I'd send $2/mo. to the admins of my instance. They're running the servers that host all this content.
Good point, I didn't think about it when I wrote my comment, but I agree that there's a difference between paying for a software product and paying for a software service.
Since we're doing meaningless comparisons:
Am I doing that right?
Oh, but Adobe charges the very reasonable $600/yr and Autodesk a bargain $3000+ per year for their software, so clearly Sync must not be that good to only be asking $17 a year. I think I'll look for something more professionally priced, instead.
Isn't sync also free?
From what I've heard, you pay by viewing ads. Those can be blocked at the DNS level, though.
You also give away your data.
I just downloaded sync and don't see ads. I do run dns66 though so that must be it.
Yep, but you still see a big ass block where the ad would be, which isn't the case in any other Lemmy app.
I haven't seen a big empty block yet.
what blocker do you use? that's what I see with nextdns
Found out I don't see ads because I'm using small cards
Dns66
As someone from a third world country, fuck no. That shit is too expensive for me. Maybe to you privileged folk it's reasonable. To me it's nonsense.
I feel shitty about it too since I was a long time sync pro user, I thought sync for lemmy would also have an affordable pro version but fuck me I guess
You actually have the only reasonable response in this thread
The dev has said that he's working on making pricing regional in the next few weeks.
Give me a one-time purchase of like $10-15 and I will, but I don't do (non-voluntary) subs.
I don't need any of the push notification services.
Edit: Added within hours. Immediately got it.
I remember going for the largest OTP for Sync quite happily. Might have been £30 or something. Subscription? Nah.
Edit: Looks like the remove ads OTP option has been added so I've hopped onto that.
Same. More than happy to support development, but I don't need another automatic subscription. I did OTP in the old app several times (purchased for different accounts, and again just because I use dns ad blockers, but still wanted to support the app). I am happy to do the same here, but not as a subscription.
Lj, please offer an option for OTP that removes ads while still being expensive enough to cover your costs.
It doesn't need to include push notifications or image preloading, or any other features that require you to maintain or rent infrastructure. I would be willing to pay $20 or $30 for a one time purchase option that doesn't make me feel like I am a drain to you when I block ads and tracking.
I will never look at ads or consent to tracking or violating my privacy, and I am willing to pay a (non-recurring) fee to enable that. I am sure I am not alone here.
I agree with essentially everything you've said. I left Reddit almost entirely because I refused to give up Sync, but I will not pay a subscription for it.
Just wanted to add that an update went out in the play store that allows a one time fee to just remove ads and tracking. I would prefer no google play services, but I am willing to compromise. I just paid $20 for my phone, and another $20 for my wife's.
Thanks for adding the option, @ljdawson!
Yeah the pro version will do that
Would you be okay if the one time purchase meant you did not receive any updates to Sync? Or perhaps it only got a few months of updates? That seems fair to me.
No, but I'd be willing to pay years ahead at once for something that I know I'll be using for longer than that.
Everything has an expiration date anyways, because I don't live forever. Who knows if we'll still be using Android 10 years from now. It's just basically a discount on very long term usage that gives the money ahead of time while taking the gamble that I will actually be using it for longer than the subscription price would be.
No. ![email protected] !
I would gladly pay once though.
Yep. As stupid as is sounds, I would pay even higher for a one off purchase.
Sounds entirely reasonable to me
You can pay once to remove ads. There's a subscription called ultra that adds some features like translations but it isn't necessary.
Where is the option to pay once? I can't find it.
For me it's when you click your account icon at the top left. Then it's right above the Ultra subscription
22€ apparently
In Beta 25, in the account switcher in the top left is a "Remove Ads" button. It's $19.99 one time. No word yet on the price for a lifetime Ultra subscription.
Yea but it's ads only, it's the "remove ads" option. It would be a lot nicer if it was ultra for a one-time fee
Lifetime Ultra is also now available albeit significantly more expensive.
Understandable. Dev says it's coming, not sure what the pricing will be.
It's here already. I subbed for a year already, so I can't see the price to just remove ads.
Welp, there it is, second reasonable response in this thread
The why not just sub for the yearly plan, then immediately cancel - same thing as a one time payment, you get to support the dev, and you don't have a subscription to worry about
Because then the ads come back after a year. I want no ads for life for a one time fee. Sync for reddit offered that, why not here?
Dev is adding that. =)
There's an option to pay once to remove ads forever.
Because one year < forever.
Okay then how much are you willing to spend? Say around 35 bucks? Developers need to eat too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Developers make more money than I do, and I need to worry about my own food first lol. I'd pay $35 one time, but I also remember a time not that long ago where $10 one-time could buy you basically anything on the app store lol.
I like the app, but I hate recurring fees more. Jerboa is free. It might not be perfect, but it works, is ad-free, is on F-Droid, and is infinitely more affordable than $17/yr.
Fair point, though I think Voyager is better than Jerboa.
A developer of this caliber can easily get 90K CAD at his day job, and even more in the US.
fuck subs...onetime payment every time, but I won't pay a sub for an app for a service that is free...
I donate to the lemmy instances, but not an app!
I mean.. Lemmy is free to use, it's just the sync dev(s) that put in work to make it beautiful. Art is free... But an art exhibit is not.
Idk. Other people have made a good point. $17/yr is not bad. Especially for a team who have always been awesome.
I'm right with you. Sync was the only reason I even started using Reddit. I happily paid the onetime fee and I'm more than happy to do it again. If the sub actually covered costs to keep Lemmy-instances running it would be one thing but that's not the case now. Let's see how it all paves out.
Subbed to lemmy.world Patreon, one time payment for the app. I like having nice things, nice things only come if there's reward in making them. I'm someone's reward for doing something nice.
Sync for Reddit Pro was 2.99€... I was expecting that much or up to 5€ for Sync for Lemmy... But these prices are just ridiculous. As much as I like Sync I just can't justify this kind of pricing when there are so many free alternatives without ads and tracking.
Right now I'm using Sync and it's really nice but it's not that much better than Jerboa for my use case.
Hate subscription based models. I wouldnt mind paying one-off but until then sorry sync , I am FOSSing
Actually the app just updated and has a one time purchase for removing ads now.
The one-time IAP is implemented now.
Lmao $100. There are so many other services who's lifetime is less than that and aren't just a front end.
This is starting to feel like a pretty disrespectful cash grab. Sync Pro was my Reddit app but it was never a $100 service.
Edit: Ah so there's tiers now. $20 for ad free as an option too. Meanwhile you get a lesser focused experience because obviously anything worth a damn is going to be Ultra exclusive.
Edit2: Just tried out Connect for Lemmy. Feels really close to Sync with gestures and such. I recommend. I was sitting on Jerboa waiting for Sync, but not with this pricing. And I'm pretty sensitive to server hosters cost. It's insane instances are out here operating at a loss providing content for these apps and Sync wants use them to charge people to provide a front end.
It's almost like the Lemmy audience is a thousand times smaller than the Reddit one and the dev still has bills to pay. Fewer users, fewer subscribers means you have to charge more.
It's not $100 unless you want a specific combo or have the means to show extra support for the dev.
Ad free is $20.
So they need to make all the revenue they made off Sync for Reddit in one week instead of growing with Lemmy over time like they did with Reddit?
What up front costs could there be here? Obviously their time, but no one is arguing it should be free. But making a premium app 10x the cost of any app, let alone their own Reddit version, is a crazy ask.
This is a gold rush through and through. Clearly the dev see's an open market, ran into it as fast as possible, charging an astronomically high fee, and will likely bring it down to reasonable levels as soon as another app, which there will be, shows up with reasonable pricing.
It's not $100. It can be, but ad free, alone, is $20.
I understand the confusion, but it's not $100. Or need not be.
You're assuming his fixed expenses are exactly what they were a decade or even a year ago. People have obligations. Houses, cars, insurance, loan payments, all of that. Reasonable expenses at the time of acquisition based on the reasonable expected income.
You can't assume someone can have their income reduced by 100% for a month, then maybe get ten percent of that back without issues. He's got bills to pay. This is his full time job.
While I agree that the price is a bit steep, there's also the fact that the userbase for Lemmy is much smaller than what it was for Reddit. To make a reasonable amount of money (in the dev's opinion), they need a higher price to compensate for the lower sales. Of course, that higher price may discourage people from laying for it at all, causing their income to be too low.
I'm still using Jerboa myself, but checking out alternatives as well. I still don't know whether Sync is worth it for me at this price.
Yea I remember seeing something from earlier today about just having enough subscription users to cover effectively minimum wage.
Maybe when there are more users the price will go down but there was definitely a lot of work put into this upfront and the user base is still much smaller.
People like to forget that this is his job. It's really about supporting the time it takes to develop and maintain sync. Just because it's just a frontend, doesn't mean it's free to maintain.
Curious where you are seeing the tiered options listed? I'm only seeing the 99.99 option for lifetime..
You click on the icon in the left hand side and it opens up a pop out, and one of the options is remove ads for $20. But then you don't get sYnC uLtRa features.
God damn bro. Its $100. Fuck that , I would rather give that money to a homeless or someone I need than paying it for a stupid app.
It's $20
It's 20 dollars.
Then do that? I bet you won't though.
Why you people getting so salty over some app? Fuck its like android, tesla,Apple fanboys. You guys are better than this BS.
I thinknit's clear they're not better than this.
It's actually my feeling about Sync. Some are fanboys and react like that. Criticism isn't permitted in this culture.
😃 Let's gooooooo 💥💥
$20 is the ad free. $100 is like super-supporter.
Same. I refuse to subscribe to an app on any platform (mobile, console, PC). Not about to start now. At least they offer a lifetime subscription unlike some software (*cough*SignalRGB*cough*), but $99 is a little ridiculous. That's more than a video game! $15-20 is more reasonable. IIRC I only paid about $10 for Relay for Reddit back then.
what is fossing
Checkout Fdroid app store.
i have it
That's what FOSS means. Free and Open source software
Don't really care about any ultra features. Once one-time-pay ad removal is there, I'm getting it. Just like I had Sync Pro and Sync Ultra (if those aren't reinstated even). I will not do subscriptions.
Ad removal is here, you have to update the app
Indeed! Just purchased
What was Sync Ultra before?
Sync for Reddit - Sync Ultra
Sync for Lemmy - Sync Ultra
Hmthe one-time IAP is implemented now.
You can remove ads with sync pro (one time payment) , as well with sync ulta (subscription).
Fuck off.
Im not paying you to remove the Ads that you injected into an addless service. Theres a half dozen other Lemmy apps already that dont pull this bullshit. And honestly synch doesnt do anything those apps dont. So other than being a mindless consumer or someone whose easily influenced by these vote manipulation shill posts, why the actual fuck would I spend money on it?
I wouldn't buy YouTube Premium either and they have significant hosting costs compared to the this app. So do the Lemmy server owners as well.
I think the dev deserves compensation for their app but the asking price is too much, for me anyway.
Lots of entitlement here...
Saying someone makes enough in their day job so all their other contributions should be free is...wow.
I guess I'm one of the few that thinks all work should be compensated. Especially work I can't do myself or that I prefer over others.
And really, it's not up to me to say what that compensation should be. It's only my job to decide if the offer is acceptable to me for what I perceive is the benefit over other options.
Because there are other options. But I'm here because I don't want the other options. I would guess many others are, too.
Totally agree.. This person does a shit load of work building and maintaining an app, they sure as hell should get paid for it.
No one says sync for lemmy should be free. Most people just oppose the subscription based model. Also our user data is being sold to data hoarding companies by sync for lemmy. That is extremely conflicting with the open source model of lemmy.
No one? What are you talking about? Have you read any of these threads?
Sync for Lemmy doesn't have trackers and the one time purchase is $20
I'm not comfortable with a subscription model, sorry. I will happily pay for a one-time fee. For the use I do of Lemmy I'll pay up to €5. If they want to release a new version of the app in, say, 2-3 years down the line and ask for a new fee, I'm fine too.
I'll wait until Boost releases (it was my default Reddit app) and will choose between Sync, Boost, Summit, and Infinity paid versions.
I don't need the ultra features. I didn't even need the pro features. I bought Sync pro for Reddit as a "thank you" to the author. A subscription is a bit different. I would be more willing to spend a couple bucks on each feature release than a subscription.
The app is amazing and I'm not against the Dev just because of what they are charging. They can charge whatever they want, if there is a market willing to pay it's fine.
But 115€ lifetime is like 10-20 times more than the price I would pay. So as a consumer I'll just stay with the free version or another Lemmy app.
As a former infinity user, "Infinity for Lemmy" is the one I'm waiting for. I'm also interested in trying Voyager android app once it is released.
Now this "sync for Lemmy" app looks very well probably the best Lemmy app at the moment. Only thing is lacking for me (so far) is to have community icons in the small cards post layout. (So I can identify what's the topic is about before reading the title).
For the text size I changed base text to Medium and then I changed the specific description and comment relative text size to "Regular". This gives me the same text size as Infinity, at least in the comments.
Prices are ridiculous, especially for returning users. The Lemmy app is basically the Reddit app. You can't convince me that at least 85% of the code was re-used from it. If you used the code from the app I already paid for (twice) I feel like I should get a discount.
Subscription models suck too.
I would start by donating to your home instance, first and foremost.
But yeah if you love the all you're using, whichever it is, donate to its devs, too
YouTube Premium pays for Youtube itself and provides a higher payout to the content creators you watch. If you actually want to support the people you watch on Youtube Premium is the best option for that, premium views pay out sometimes 10x as much as ad revenue on videos. It's the best way to have a good experience and support the people you watch outside of giving them money directly.
Meanwhile, this is like paying some 3rd party website to scrape Youtube and make sure the people you watch don't see a penny. Since presumably if one of the servers like Lemmy.World breaks down and adds ad's to offset the astronomical server fees and growth, Sync would block them, if not they are doing a disservice to people who bought ad free.
This is paying to the creator of the app, who works on this app full time, unlike most devs whose Lemmy apps are side projects.
A sad day we live in that people see it this way instead of questioning why there's only one front end application for YouTube. Back in the day it used to be common to have different third party client applications for a backend service.
I despise recurring fees, so no. $17 sounds good for a 1-time fee though.
There's a one time purchase to remove ads.
The ultra subscription adds a few features like translations that use cloud services.
It would be nice to have a one-time donation option for the ultra version, instead of just removing ads
He added it, $100
I agree, but I imagine the size of the userbase is why there's a subscription model for cloud features.
I'm cool with a 1 time fee to stop ads, but I don't see how to do that anywhere. I can only figure out how to pay $2/month or $17/year for Ultra
In Beta 25, in the account switcher in the top left is a "Remove Ads" button. It's $19.99 one time. No word yet on the price for a lifetime Ultra subscription.
Check the Play Store for an update if you don't see it.
Okay, yeah, I think I had to update (or I'm blind). Thanks! That's much better!
Sub once then cancel to show your support then
Support for the subscription? Because that's what you would do
You're comparing a service that stores a gajillion gajillions of petabytes to sync?
Thats a good point, but I was referring to payment for a service/software that I use. Ive had the YT family plan since it was called YT Red. I'm very willing to pay for the tools I use.
I moved to Lemmy because Sync was announced that's where they were going, but I'm not going to pay a monthly subscription for an app. I expected a reasonable one time payment like I had on Sync for Reddit. If that's not an option then I'll have to figure something else out
No regional pricing.
I would never pay more then 10$ for a full game i could play for hundreds of hours, let alone 20$ to remove black rectangles from a free app.
sync ultra is just stupidly expensive, I'm not even talking about it, just the permanent ad removal option.
I think the main issue is we don't know where Lemmy is one year from now. I have already started to see a decline in my usage because there simply isn't enough content. /c/football is virtually dead it feels like and it (or rather /r/soccer) was my number one subreddit.
I'm not trying to say it's unreasonably priced, but that comparison with YouTube is not really fair. Delivering video content is an incredibly expensive service
And YouTube actually produces content, and some of your subscription goes to the independent creators. If this subscription somehow paid for Lemmy servers that I was using then it'd be far more reasonable. One time purchase or no purchase for me
Would rather donate my time or money to FOSS like Thunder. Service models aren't the way for me.
I'll put my money where my mouth is just like last time if they give a one time option to remove ads. I don't the extra stuff and don't want another subscription.
There is, at least on the version I'm running (beta 26). It should be present in the profile menu on the top left.
The test of reasonableness is different for everyone.
I have no interest in cloud backup, or any other feature that incurs a cost to the dev. So why would I pay a subscription fee to "cover" those features?
If I like the app after sustained use, I might be willing to pay a one-time $8-$12 fee to remove ads/thank the dev/buy them a coffee
But I have zero interest in an ongoing subscription at this stage. There's just not enough value for me in spending that sort of money.
Maybe if it is better than boost's implementation. But at that price, especially on such a young platform, I'm certainly only buying one.
Sync might be in trouble if boost costs less while being on par with its previous reddit counterpart.
What do you mean? It's 20 bucks to remove ads. It's not even a subscription.
The subscription for ultra is something else entirely.
There was an update adding a one time purchase option to remove ads. Earlier, there was only a subscription option.
I loved Boost for reddit, it was so so good, still waiting for the lemmy version
My personal limit is one time 10$, those other optons are simply too much.
Is there not going to be a lifetime pro (one-time purchase) option?
There is, people are knee-jerking to the beta version, which is subscription for now. Once things are out of beta, a one-time-purchase version will be available.
It's already there. Got added in an update.
Jerboa has no ads. Why would i pay $17 a year for removing ads that sync puts on their app themselves? There is nothing that sync is bringing to the table that jerboa doesnt have ad/subscription free.
Am I the only one who thinks that sync pro for reddit subscribers should have their one time purchase be honored/restored?
Not with the overhaul required. That said, the asking price is too steep.
Yeaaaaa I would like that but I don't see it being possible or feasible, I bought sync dev years ago, don't mind throwing another few dollars in
Yeah but the one-time purchase now is hardly another few dollars... Its $99 now, which is absurd.
Edit: I see now that there is a $20 version to remove ads. Still would be great if they honored folks who paid for reddit's syncpro, especially considering that version blocked reddit ads, and this version blocks ads inserted by the app itself.
It blocked ads inserted by Sync. No third party app ever displayed reddit ads to my knowledge.
:/ had to buy sync twice. Had it for a few years and one day it was like ! hey I'm not working anymore !
A bit frustrating but honestly sync is worth chipping some money towards.
I actually don't see an option to buy it once at all, I'm not really wanting to pay a subscription lol
I fucking hate how subscriptions are just the default now. Tbh I will probably just pleb it up with the free version.
There was an update that added a ad free one time payment or a lifetime ultra sub.
I used sync for a loooong time on Reddit so...
The devs time in rewriting and testing a whole new backend for Lemmy isn't free though.
I got Ultra Lifetime when it launched 13 months ago, $35 as I recall. People who didn't go the "supportive" route paid $19 for that year. This rubs me up the wrong way even though I don't care about the money, it's not actual adversity or anything. Just doesn't sit well. Also paid the previous prices when the app launched many years ago
I agree.
Ultra Lifetime is arguable but as I understand it, it's not that easy because Google Play doesn't have a way to transfer subscriptions between apps like that.
Pro I don't think makes sense because it was pretty cheap to begin with. Pro ended up costing me $0.00062/day ($2.50 11 years ago). Kind of makes me feel guilty to be honest.
Don't feel guilty. We were early backers before Ultra was a thing and probably before costs to run Sync were high
I went ahead and bought a year because I want to support this project. I am hoping by the time that's due to expire, there will be non-subscription options
That's a mature approach to this, and one that I agree with. I didn't think the pricing too steep. I can agree, I don't like having subscriptions if I can avoid it. But less than $20 a year... its nothing for an app ill likely use every day (and not owned by a mega corporation)
As much as I like the app, after currency conversions that's a lot, especially as a recurring subscription. For a one time fee, I'd just want to remove ads without any extra bells and whistles.
I would be OK with paying to just remove ads but the price (₱1100) is just too much for me.
17 a year seems reasonable if it's an app you use daily. There are costs associated with making and maintaing app.
I don't know though, I feel like giving money to an app for Lemmy would kind of be like supporting the wrong person. Especially if you haven't even donated to your instance's owner yet.
Good point... Do both!
Or to Lemmy's developers, which makes your instance possible, which makes the third-party app possible.
Yeah it feels a bit wild to add ads to the experience while charging 5x as much to remove them as the Reddit Synce app on a service that people are hosting on good will and at a loss, compared to Reddit being itself ad filled and a premium selling service.
It'd be different if like some of the subscription went to the servers people use or something. But it really feels like taking from everyone and charging a pretty high price for it compared to any app, let alone a front end only one.
Great point!
I bought pro back in 2013 I believe. And lifetime ultra once it came out that reddit was banning third party apps as support.
I'm not gonna do.a.subscription. I'm just not.
The dev of sync have to split the ads and subscription revenue with the instances. It would be fair like this. He donating 30% of the revenue to them. He is paid and he pays for the usage of the instances.
Youtube premium isn't the same. Youtube itself has huge server, storage, bandwidth cost and premium is paying for it. The cost of the app is a fraction of it.
On youtube, you have each second tons of new content. What I don't have inside the app. The content comes from the instances. The equivalent would be paying a subscription to the instances.
The creators receive a part of my subscription what isn't the case here.
With youtube premium, I have youtube music an additional service included.
In my opinion, the first point is the fairest. The dev splits the revenues with the instances. It would be nearer to the Youtube model.
Lots of comments about the subscription. I had pro for years and had no idea the dev had switched to a subscription model. Had been anticipating the release but now.... I would gladly pay again but not though a subscription no matter how good the app is. First time I see an ad on the app I'll just go back to connect.
I'm not paying a subscription and the first ad I see I'm uninstalling it.
Sync pro was my go to for reddit, but I refuse to pay for a subscription.
Wait until the revanced team patches the ads. There's an open request for it on the GitHub, so very likely it will happen.
Lucky patcher and adaway. Haven't seen one ad so far.
If you want something free and open source, Jeroba works great and has no trackers
jeroba is trash
I wouldn't say trash, but Sync is superior in absolutely every way
Except the things everyone is complaining about*
Everyone? I'm not complaining in the slightest. I'm more than willing to pay for the services I use, especially if they're miles ahead of anything free
Too late, already did
first thing I did after opening
I think the cost is prohibitively high considering 99% of Reddit users have never used Lemmy before and have no idea how it works. There is a massive opportunity to soak up all those disolutioned redditors and a low entry price to kick things off over the next 6 to 12 months might have been a key way to achieve that. As it stands the cost is massive to a lot of people who will either use alternative apps or just won't even switch to Lemmy at all. You can't even submit your own posts yet. It's not prime time ready. I truly loved Sync for Reddit and have paid for Pro twice, and shown support to LJ, but I think this pricing level is a mistake.
Does the subscription also partly fund the instances I subscribe to (lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, etc servers)? If so then I'm onboard
This is actually a great suggestion. If e.g. 50% are going to instance owner of your choosing, I imagine more people would be willing to subscribe, perhaps at even higher price point.
At present, I don't think it does, which is a shame.
I'm not a sync user but I feel like the dev may have missed an option - pay what you want. PWYW feels almost like a donation.
I paid for ultra mainly to support the Dev. Lemmy isn't good enough for me to switch over just yet but I'll be keeping my eye on it now that Sync for Lemmy exists.
There's only one developer.
Good thing there's Liftoff for Lemmy
I just bought a lifetime license for Sync. The customization, feature set, and options put it well above the 5 other Lemmy apps I've used. With almost a decade of consistent upgrades to Sync for Lemmy, I trust and support this developer.
I don't think I paid very much for the original version so I don't mind supporting him now but I understand that's not for everyone, so I think $20 for lifetime ad-free is very reasonable.
20usd? It's 15000 jpy for me.. That's like 120usd for lifetime. Hard to justify that for an app tbh.
You are talking about the Ultra lifetime. Just ad free is $20 USD.
I've used Sync for Reddit since February 2015. Had I paid $120 for that time it would've been $1.25 per month. And with the amount of time I spent on reddit that would've been more than fair.
It really depends on what you're getting out of the app. And it's tough to say how Lemmy will develop so I'm cautious to buy a subscription let alone a lifetime sub now. But it could absolutely be justifiable.
Outrageous price for an app. It doesn't even provide the content. It's just an app to show it. We have completely free options. That is it's competition, not youtube. Such a strange thing to compare it to. Youtube provides the framework and code and hosts the videos. It isn't simply a frontend app.
Shut up and take my money!
Im still looking which app is for me, but honestly sync seems like the best atm. I am hosting pihole so adds are just blank posts every now and then. It doesnt bother me, but I dont like it. I dont mind supporting devs, but adds and subscription can just stop me tbh. Im not saying it will, 22€ is not much for lifetime sub imo. It just feels like its not in lemmy spirit. If it was without adds I would probably never consider other app after trying sync and more likely donate. But yeah, I understand that donations are not reliable income
The idea of buying something when I haven't used it yet is kind of ridiculous, especially when the only option is an auto-renewing subscription service. If I could pay for a single month without having to figure out how and when I can cancel or it was a single purchase, I'd be more likely to give it a shot. Signing up for a subscription without knowing if the product is good just doesn't make sense to me
Add that to the fact that I have to pay to get the same no ads experience as many other free apps, that kinda rubs me the wrong way
After thinking a little more, I had another frustrating realization. Some of the core tenants of the fediverse are being ad-free and respecting privacy. Sync breaks both of these, inserting ads in an ad free platform and collecting your personal data for the purpose of selling it to ad companies (explicitly stated in privacy policy).
As much as I liked sync for Reddit, I don't think I'm going to use sync for Lemmy. The paradigm of the platform is different, but sync has not adapted
I think it might be better if sync actually not offering free version at all instead of including ads, given the almost universal hate for data collection among Lemmy users.
You just just subscribe and then immediately cancel the subscription in the play store just like any other play store subscription service.
I might shell out the money for ad free at some point, but right now I'm not confident that Lemmy will be relevant in a year. That said, the app is fantastic and I made it look exactly like the Reddit version of the app. It's just such a good app, I love it.
The difference is I use YouTube and YouTube Music for hours a day. I'm on Lemmy maybe an hour a day. I'm not paying any subscription for a free service. I wouldn't even pay for YouTube Premium, but I'm an original Google Music adopter, and their music algorithm really knows what I like.
I gave up Netflix, so I can stomach the cost increase this one time. Maybe my mood will change when the price increase hits later this year.
You aren't. That would be your Lemmy instances patreon (or similar). I hope you support your instance because otherwise this entire service could fail.
You're paying for the slick presentation and app features with Sync. I'm a software engineer. It is difficult work. Time consuming. Risky as well given this (sync) is literally the dev's full time job.
That's the beauty of third party apps; you can find a best match for you. But there will almost always be a quality and feature gap between people doing it for a hobby and people doing it for a career. That is why Apollo beat basically every iOS client. That is also why Sync beat the other Android reddit clients for me. And it has already beaten the free ones for Lemmy in my opinion.
I still want YTM to bring back the I'm feeling lucky radio. I always found awesome new artists to listen to.
Yeah, I miss that as well.
How about, you know, Sync Pro again? I'd gladly pay one time to remove ads, but I'm not doing subscriptions.
Immediately bought Ultra. Monthly basis and thankfully set it up with my Google Play balance. So glad I use Google Rewards to help out!
Feels like reuniting with an old friend!
I bought a year sub to support the dev after all the reddit fuckery. We'll see if I renew.
I did the same, though I'm not really a fan of subscriptions. I'll probably pay to remove ads once my subscription runs out, but I wanted to support LJ. Especially now since sync for lemmy is new, and Lemmy doesn't have that many users relative to Reddit so the audience for the app is a lot smaller
Had some Google Play balance, supported the dev. This is already the best Lemmy app by far.
Excuse me? People can barely afford food. A huge chunk of the population will never own their own home. Everyone is asking for tips and wages are not going up. Why pay for something when I can access it for free right now? Sure they may have worked hard to make an app, but it's not my job or responsibility to pay them for a service that I get for free. I'm not paying $1.50 a month to have what my current app has. That's stupid.
I paid to remove ads. I did so before seeing the price for Ultra. Ah well. lol
I'm still paying my sync for reddit fee and I bought pro in 2012. I also subbed to the lemmy variant today.
Why would you still be paying for reddit sync? If you want to donate, do it directly and not in a way where Google takes 15%
Just haven't bothered canceling it yet. I wanted to keep supporting them after they asked what we wanted them to do.
Maaaaybe. But so far it's not quite RIF.
First thing I did, it's amazing
I hate it when people see a $100+ price-tag for a lifetime subscription and complain. A OTP is literally a user that cannot be charged again, and if lemmy keeps growing, it will provide value for many years.
I used sync pro for almost 10 years and paid something like $5 for it, such pricing is unsustainable for the developer and I totally understand the subscription model
Dude has the best app for lemmy and provides a good boost to the ecosystem which benefits all. Development time costs (a lot) of money and the dev has every right to charge what he wants.
Um... No. There are plenty of free options I will use instead.
Done paid, this app rules so far thank you
a premium is worth it.
but also we need to help instance owners somehow too.
Done.
It's by far the nicest Lemmy app I've used on Android. I used to use sync for reddit too.
It's a no brainer for me.
The one time ad free payment is on the way. J is holding out on lifetime ultra since he wants to see where Lemmy is heading.
It's.the principle of it.
Sync's dev is being greedy. Most of the reason why I left Reddit was because they were being greedy.
I'm not supporting that shit.
I'm a day 1 Ultra! I have so missed the Sync experience since Reddit went apeshit cray cray. When sync for Reddit went dark I haven't gone back. I left it installed just In case I clicked a reddit link. I haven't been back to Reddit. But I will log one one final time to review my subs and then reddit is dead. Sync for Lemmy feels so familiar and awesome to use. Can't wait to help develop new communities here in the fediverse.
Fuck this ad invested, data collecting, closed source piece of shit. Use infinity instead.
So speaking of that, it seems like you have to pay per device. I payed for ultra on my phone, but it doesn't seem to carry over to my tablet.
I don't think you need to pay per device. I purchased it on one phone and was able to click the restore purchase (subscription?) on a second phone and it activated it on the second phone.
I paid on my phone and it also gave me ultra on my tablet. It's not per device. I don't think google play even has that functionality.
Weird, maybe it's just glitched on my tablet. I'll have to try clearing the cache and reinstalling.
No, it's per Google account like any other IAP
I can't believe everyone asking for a one time payment option. If you don't want to keep subscribing just get a yearly ultra and then cancel. Support the dev guys. Nothing worth having is free
...Lemmy is free.
Also the one time payment model was how sync funded itself until now.
Lemmy has the illusion of being free IMO, our donations keep the cloud clouding and the devs devving 🫣
Lol you think lemmy is free. Try actually hosting. Nothing is free. Not lemmy, not mastodon, not kbin. I subscribe to mastodon's patreon and I support my hosts just like I'm paying for sync. Because I want to keep it going. Of course there will be free users, I understand not everyone is as privileged as me but that doesn't mean any of these things are free.
Also one time payment was a form of how sync funded itself. It still had the sync ultra function alongside the pro version.
Nothing worth having is free
I beg to differ. I'm using Connect and its free and it's fantastic, w/ no ads
I used to have connect before sync. It's a great app but nowhere close bro.
Yeah? I'm legitimately interested. Mind telling me what you like about it more than Connect?
For starters it's smoother on my phone. I don't think connect supports a faster refresh rate. You can set individual default sort for basically any feed or community. I can have the home feed set for new and all feed set for hot. Way more and I mean WAY MORE customization options. Better working gestures for liking or disliking or bookmarking. Easier to access subscribed communities. Also if you tap on the search bar you'll see commonly browsed communities. For example I check memes but I don't want them on my home feed so I just go to the community. And that's just stuff off the top of my head. I would find more if I installed connect again to do a side by side. Don't get me wrong connect is a great app but sync has been polished through the years and it's shows.
Thank you very much. I'm going to go check it out.
I already paid for Sync for Reddit. Now, to not have ads, it costs considerably more than I paid for, on a client to a service that has no ads or a monetized API.
I'm starting to think that Lemmy was a bad idea. This place is FULL of hardcore nerds.
Everyone here degoogles, downvotes anything not Firefox, shit talks anything but Linux, and refuses to pay a penny because FOSS!!!!!
On Reddit these people at least existed in their own corner. Not all over the platform being annoying little twats.
It sounds more like Lemmy was a bad idea for you specifically, lol
Sounds like the hardcore nerds are thriving.
Sounds like the nerds want everything for free. They don't want to pay with their data or their wallet. Can't have both.
It's true though, programmers and IT professionals are know to have aversion to pay for their tools. "Why pay $20 when you can spend the whole weekend making an open source solution works" kind of thing. I know because I'm one of them. Made an exception for sync though because I've been using it for 8 years.
For me it really just depends on how nice / impactful to my experience it is. I don't pay for a git client because I'd rather just use the CLI, but I do pay for the JetBrains suite of tools because they are genuinely good (though I do still rock a decent vim setup for stuff that doesn't need a full-blown IDE).
I have no problem paying for Sync because its a decent Lemmy client, and I also donate to the Lemmy project and pay for my own Lemmy instance (or rather, the server and resources that it uses to operate).
Really glad that even people here are prone to painting each other with swaths of a paintbrush, though.