Spyke
syncforlemmy·Sync for LemmybyFlagonOfMe

One-time payment for ad-free is live in Beta 25. It's $19.99 USD. Update your app if you don't see it.

Tap the account switcher in the top left corner and you should see the option.

See my comment for a screenshot. I don't know why I can't seem to post a screenshot in the body of post. Every time I try it gets removed.

View original on sh.itjust.works
Nato Boramreply
lemm.ee

I also paid with my Google Opinion Rewards even though I didn't use it, but this price is literally double what I've gained in a year. A bit greedy, innit?

8
Auxreply
lemmy.world

Have you seen price growth in London (where Sync author lives) in the last couple of years?

-4
Nato Boramreply
lemm.ee

And have you seen the prices of Jerboa, Connect, Liftoff and Thunder?

4

It is but it also isn't. I paid $5 for sync pro for reddit and have gotten literally thousands of hours out of it. $20 isn't that significant in the grand scheme of things if you like the app.

20
dreamfallreply
lemmy.world

As much as I browsed reddit throughout the day for the past 5 years....$20 seems like nothing. Hell I spend $10 a month of a few Patreons for ad free content.

20

Hey if it's not stopping you, more money to support the developer and signal more Lemmy content! I'm personally doing the $2 sub until Boost for Lemmy comes out and may switch. Dunno yet, may come back and buy Sync too.

7
lemmy.sdf.org

Yeah, that's insane. Also the experience IMHO is not supreme vs something like Summit. I don't really understand the hype.

12

First actual full featured client, so timing is a huge advantage. Maybe we'll see a price dip when Boost for Lemmy comes out.

3
szmer.info

I'm on the verge. Let's be honest, it's fucking expensive. Where I live it's pretty much an entire day's worth of work to buy this app remove ads. I understand LJ wanting to be paid for his work, but this steep pricing seems like he doesn't believe in Lemmy and just wants to capitalise on it before it eventually goes to shit. Let me just point out greed was what originally drived us all off reddit.

10
lemm.ee

Well to make it bearable, set your DNS to an adblocking like dns.aguard-dns.com and the ads will just be blank cuz they're blocked.

5

I have adaway, I don't see them anyway (or perhaps because I'm in EU? Apparently revoking tracking permission removes ads?)

2

I bet if they sold a version called Sync-Budget for $4 they'd sell more than five times the amount than Sync-Ultimate.

6
lemmy.world

I'm doing the ultra at about $23 cdn per year. $2 a month for an app I use about 300 times a day for years seems like a good deal.

6
lemmy.ca

I'm not going to argue with what you're happy to pay, I'm just curious why you are doing the math based on how much you use it instead of some other metric like the amount of labour it took to produce or maybe how much ad revenue you need to replace?

I see $23/year for a few years equaling the cost of outright owning a AAA video game (that will receive support and updates for years to follow too) that took millions of dollars and many thousands of man-hours to produce and it doesn't add up...

0
akimreply
lemmy.world

These triple a games are expected to be sold in the millions. $20 is about enough for one hour of works in terms of labour. This times expected sales, which are on the thousands at max for Lemmy, and you got what it takes to develop an app like this.

6

I agree $20 isn't all that much on its own (for a developer it's likely only a third of an hour really) but that's kind of the point. One person's full-time development wage is less than that of 30 people, so why charge just as much just because the audience is much smaller? It seems what you're saying is that Sync isn't currently viable and needs to be over priced (for a comparable product) to survive.

Also, wouldn't Sync be the equivalent of an indie game in this comparison? Why don't those games have to charge more than the AAA games to make up for the smaller customer base?

3
Sl00kreply
programming.dev

I can turn it back around on you and say why do you think the worth is detached from how much usage it gets from its users? If anything something we use and enjoy using should be getting more rather than a one off AAA game we'll enjoy for 20 hours one month.

2
lemmy.ca

There's a resource and human effort cost that is the backing behind the pricing of most things. I'm actually having a very difficult time thinking of something that's priced strictly based on the time+enjoyment metric without factoring labour+material at all outside of maybe famous works or art or other things that are "valuable" simply because they are rare. Are you able to provide an example of something commonly sold that would follow the time+enjoyment pricing scheme to help me wrap my head it?

A cruise and a staycation don't cost the same even if they're for the same duration, even if you get sick on the cruise and have to cut the trip short. It feels like you're saying "I actually really enjoy the staycation, and even though more resources go into a cruise, I'll gladly pay more to stay at home then go on the cruise" and that can't possibly be what you're saying....

3

I’m actually having a very difficult time thinking of something that’s priced strictly based on the time+enjoyment metric without factoring labour+material

Just to be clear I think at a base level labour and material should still be taken into an account. The problem right now is these apps are essentially warring over your attention and in order to do so are hacking our ape brains. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, that relationship can be somewhat symbiotic, we get entertainment they get ad revenue. However the situations gotten dire as they need to drive profits up and steal attention from each other and instead of innovating and progressing their platform they're maliciously implementing ways to keep you on their platform. We need to swap to a system that's revolved around our money being spent where our enjoyment is at. This negates malicious ad revenue driven profits and might actually drive an era of innovation across big tech which hasn't happened since the early 2010's.

When talking directly about the fediverse, sure the devs love working on lemmy, but for how long. Quite frankly nobody will agree but we should be paying them to work on it as we should be paying instance admins in some capacity. This is an ad free experience we should really put our money where our mouth (enjoyment) is.

1
lemmy.ca

Boy do I have some stuff to sell you then! How much do you happen to enjoy air would you say?

-6

That comment was actually meant to be to someone else lol. Oh well, wanna join my promising business opportunity? This thread has a bunch of potential suckers customers

3
Auxreply
lemmy.world

Life in London is very very expensive, it's one of the most expensive cities in the world. And Sync author lives in London. I live in London myself and I can see his price as fair, lol.

-5
Davereply
lemmy.nz

You're not paying to remove ads. You're supporting the development and making it worthwhile for the developer to continue to create the app.

That it happens to remove ads is just a side benefit. You can remove ads from all apps using a VPN based ad blocker anyway (on android).

75
PownyRydareply
lemmy.world

I paid €2.51 to remove ads on Sync for Reddit. I would have spent maybe a tenner but it's over €20 for the Lemmy app. As much as I love Sync, that's a big nope from me.

103

Remember, Lemmy has a lot less active users than Reddit. Even if ALL active Lemmy users on Lemmy.world buy the app at its original $2 price, it's still not enough to sustain full time development. Both higher one time purchase price and subscription is needed for the app's survival, even then I'm still not sure if it's enough for the dev to sustain themselves. I'm getting the ultra subscription for this reason because I don't want the app to go away, and I encourage people that really like the app to do so as well.

31
Davereply
lemmy.nz

That's quite the understatement. 400 million vs 60,000 monthly active users.

39

Monthly active users aren't counted the same. Lemmy only counts people who post or comment. Still a big difference, but 60,000 is not the entire userbase of Lemmy.

3
Knightfallreply
lemmy.ca

No, we're paying to remove ads. And $26 CDN to remove ads feels really high when I paid $3.69 to remove ads in Boost and $4.49 to remove ads in Relay in 2019.

I like how you bothered to speak of supporting the dev yet mentioned how to stop ads with a VPN based blocker.

39
sudo_teereply
lemmy.world

Yes it is steep for me in Quebec with taxes it is 31 $ . But I had the option to use 20$ in google play credits from Google rewards. 11$ is an ok deal. Remember that sync is the first Lemmy app from former Reddit devs and that the developer worked really hard to release it.

11

I am aware of the scenario. Sync for Lemmy is not just relaunching into a fresh world here. The dev shouldn't come in with unreasonable pricing. Not when we can use very nice apps such as Connect instead for free, and ad free.

6
Davereply
lemmy.nz

Paying to remove ads is supporting the dev. This is doubly true when you can get no ads without paying (though sync will still have blank spots where the ads were supposed to go).

2
Davereply
lemmy.nz

It's a lifetime option. They may well make $20 over the next 10 years.

3

You can keep sync when you get a new phone. It goes with your google account, it's what the "restore purchases" option is for during the setup.

8

Why does that matter? I've replaced my phone 4 times so since I bought sync for reddit, still used the same 7 dollar purchase to the end.

1
El_Rochareply
lm.put.tf

Yes we are paying to remove ads.

If people want to keep supporting the dev, just buy the subscription or check if he has a donations link. But this purchase is just what it says: Remove Ads.

22
Davereply
lemmy.nz

Sure, but if you're someone who wants sync specifically (say, if you used it for reddit), then you need to support it if you want it to stay in development.

14
redcalciumreply
lemmy.institute

I understand the sentiment. Most devs that release Lemmy apps do so as a side projects. They don't make money doing it. In fact, they actually losing money and time to work on their side projects. It's actually amazing how many apps we now have in just a short time.

That being said, Sync developer is one of a few dev who work on a lemmy app full time. This results in higher quality app, even though it's still in beta right now. But since he's literally doing this for a living, he'll need to make some money to continue his work. People was begging for him to make an app for Lemmy, and he actually does it. Whether he'll continue doing this or not will depends on whether he can make a living or not. And since the market for Lemmy apps is so small, there is no other choice but to charge a higher price to make the calculus works. For a lot of people that rooting for him, paying $20 or $17/year is no brainer if it means they get to have their favorite app working on Lemmy.

22
Dr Cogreply
mander.xyz

Sync isn't the type of app that needs to be worked on full time. It's an alternate interface of an existing website.

This price is too steep and I will either wait for it to go down or switch to another app when they become more full featured.

1

So I guess any new updates and features will just release on their own, huh?

1

The thing that set Sync and Apollo apart from a horde of other 3rd party reddit client apps was due to both dev was working full time on their app, and the quality of those apps prove it. The sync dev has been working full time on lemmy app in the past few weeks, and we can already see how good the app is compared o other lemmy apps.

If Apollo dev were also making a lemmy app, the price would be more or less the same simply due to small lemmy user base. The economy of scale simply is not there yet. The only way those devs can lower the price and still be able to sustain themselves is if lemmy gain a whole lot more total active users.

0

I'm not saying there is no other choice. Lemmy core devs are paid by a grant to work on Lemmy full time for example. Other apps developers may have a different funding model (donation, or even out of their own pocket), but for Sync, the dev is a commercial app developer so he does what he do best: making a paid app.

7
Gxostreply
lemmy.world

This platform needs money to keep going. If donations do not cover expenses, it will either find funding or just close. So, it may end up using "trappings of capitalism".

4

I was talking about servers, not client apps.

Regarding the app, yes, $20 is too expensive for just turning off ads. Moon Reader Pro asks $8 for an ad-free experience, and yet I think it's a bit too much for me. But it's a market, and demand will correct the price. If nobody pays $20 to disable ads, the devs can consider reducing the price, at least temporarily. So I don't see any problems here.

As for totally free apps, I consider them as a sort of gift. Some people are giving away the results of their labor for free, maybe because it's their hobby, or because of ideology, but definitely because they have spare time to work on their apps. But it can change, and active development can stop. The only thing able to motivate them to continue the work is a profit, allowing them to spend some time without sacrificing anything else. We can end up with ads, subscriptions, single-time payments, or maybe just donations. I think it's inevitable for active projects.

2

The market will definitely speak on this one since the platform itself isn’t monetized and there are tons of other options for those who don’t want to pay that much. If it ends up not being workable, it won’t be workable, and the model will need to adapt or fold.

I’d never pay that much for a phone app, personally, especially on android, because I’ve had apps that change dramatically to the point I no longer like/can use them. It’s a bit better on iOS because the devices are supported a lot longer with OS updates (literally the reason I switched after a lifetime with android flexibility - sick of apps not working and my phones not being supported officially for more than 2 years).

This isn’t to say I won’t pay for things I want and support - I did pay for a Plex lifetime subscription like 9 years ago ($100, it’s 120 now, and a large amount of paying for it is app access, but also managed home users so my close friends/family can be logged in to my account directly without impacting me in any way) because the value was well worth it after subscribing month to month to test it and using the free version for several years prior. The value for what I paid has increased substantially with new features and just simple longevity. The model seems to work well enough for what they provide, both to them and to their users. I can swap to another self-host if it falls apart, but in the 12 or so years I’ve been using it, only a small number of changes have negatively impacted me, and only slightly (tho I paid early, so if features were paywalled after being free, I’m not aware of it, tho they have made some previously paid things free, like plexamp). I can skip server updates and roll them back easily if it stops working with my OS, and my users wouldn’t know the difference for a long time.

This tends not to be the case with mobile apps because devices are constantly changing, and side-loading apks can be a challenge for your average person. It’s a lot less static overall than pc hardware, so app-breaking updates on older mobile hardware are way way more likely. I can’t afford new phones all the time, so that’s a problem to me.

I’m looking at the relative useful lifecycle of the software. If I can get maybe a couple years before my OS version isn’t properly supported to run the app anymore, and it’s difficult to fix without upgrading hardware or rooting and flashing (not something everyone can or wants to do), I probably don’t want it. I turned off automatic app updates for years because of this issue, but they stop working after a while anyway.

2
maniajackreply
lemmy.world

Last thread was complaints of not wanting subscriptions this thread is complaints of too expensive 🤷. By all means keep the ads or use another app. Imo it's not super surprising to be pricey when it's a one time purchase instead of the subscription.

18

Welcome to the internet

“We want this”

“No not like that”

Sync is good enough to get 20 bucks easily. If I wasn’t on iPhone, I would immediately.

15

Having paid $6 for reddit sync probably over a decade ago while the dev has maintained and improved the app over those years with no additional money from me, I think I got a pretty good deal. It's definitely a calculation to make but I don't think $20 would have been unreasonable a decade ago and I don't really think it is now. Maybe also dont forget to put some blame on reddit, the dev got fucked there and has to rebuild the customer base that would have included recurring payment customers (unlike me).

0
lemmy.ca

If the subscription was $200/year, would you consider $250 for lifetime to be a deal?

1
Voyajerreply
lemmy.world

The sub includes more feature unlocks than just ad removal. The pro unlock doesn't include user tagging anymore like it did for reddit for example.

0
dreamfallreply
lemmy.world

God forbid you pay $20 once to support the dev and for an app you'll use 1-2 hours a day for potentially the rest of your life...yet you'll pay $10 for a streaming service you'll never touch for months on end...

13
GingeyBookreply
lemmy.world

My man, I'm not using lemmy 2 hours a day every day for 60 something years

26

Everyone's usage is different...but I'm sure many people used Sync for Reddit as much since it was out.

3

How is the amount of time you spend on a app a consideration for the price? Using Sync more doesn't cost the dev any more so not sure why they would be factored into it. It feels like you're conflating personal value with cost.

3
lemmy.world

Jesus, dude! It's a one-time payment for lifetime of no adds! Plus you support the developer.

People are spoiled.

-1

Quite the opposite. I already block ads, I want to support the developer. But I don't want a subscription nor do I want to pay a huge fee for one app. I use a lot of apps and it's not feasible to pay that much for each one.

5

I think that's the price for the lifetime subscription. The one time payment to remove ads it's about $20.

7

I'm happy to pay, mostly as a thank you for the 10 years I spent with Sync on Reddit. LJ is a damn hard working dev and deserves to feed himself.

1
lemm.ee

That's so aggressive just to remove ads. I get it that devs need to eat but holy shit man.

63
FlagonOfMereply
sh.itjust.works

I think people (me included) have a very poor sense of what apps are worth.

$20 for an app you use nearly every day for years is unthinkable.

$20 for a single decent meal at a restaurant is fine.

Seems odd to me that anyone should think $20 spent on an excellent app is too much.

49
ughreply
lemm.ee

I think the issue is that Lemmy is still developing and we don't know what it's going to look like even 6 months from now. $20 for unlimited access isn't bad at all if you know you'll get your money's worth. I'm still hesitant with Lemmy because there are features that it lacks. I'm optimistic that they will be added, but I can't be sure.

24

Same here but after 6 years of using Sync I know what I get out of Sync, my hesitation is only in regard to the Lemmy project itself.

13
Vhostymreply
lemmy.world

Except for the years of development the dev has a track record for developing the same thing but for reddit. /s

2
nealreply
lemmy.world

I don't think the hesitation is with the developer of Sync. I think he is worried about the sustained success from Lemmy. If people keep staying active, more people will join. But it could also fade away quickly (I hope not).

6

Hasn't the Lemmy dev been working on it for like 3 years straight regardless of how many people were using it? Now that active users are at an all time high it seems unlikely that he would just drop it

2
the_moosenreply
lemm.ee

I have a hard time justifying $20 for a mobile app. I don't think I've spent more than $5.99 on an app and I used play rewards money so it wasn't even mine.

10
dreamfallreply
lemmy.world

It's okay... whiners on this thread will spend $20 for two Starbucks drinks which last you minutes of taste enjoyment...but browse Sync everyday and complain $20 for life is too much...

-11

Not trying to say that 20 is a lot, but 10$ coffee sounds like im not drinking coffee

1
lemmy.world

Sync was Reddit for me and I didn't even bat an eye about buying pro at the time (around 3€ I think).

Paying 23€ for ad removal is just being greedy right now, I really want to support the dev but this is just too much.

56
quadropissreply
lemmy.world

That's lifetime for an awesome app made by an independent developer. And its being updated regularly. Honestly if I wasn't broke I wouldn't mind paying it. That's like 2 pizzas

-9
madcaesarreply
lemmy.world

I know it's "just two pizzas" the problem is everyone and their uncle wants two pizzas.... Everywhere we turn people are extracting us for every cent at some point you've gotta draw lines.

I've already cancelled most subscriptions.

Sync lemmy is simply too much.

Compare it to nzb360, one OF THE BEST apps out there, and he's like half the price.

Lifetime should be 9.99 MAX, then make lower tiers so people can still support the dev.

29
lemmy.world

The whole pricing debate is so exhausting. Anybody who feels $20 is too steep for an app they might use for the next decade is welcome to their opinion, but they'll never have the same perspective as those of us who enjoyed a decade of improvements to Sync for Reddit. LJ is a class act, Sync is leagues ahead of all other 3PAs, and I'm happy to pay my share.

There are so many FOSS & alternative options. LJ is dedicating his full attention to a niche platform and has set up a subscription model that allows this project to remain sustainable for him & his team (yes, team). Feel free to go with any other option, but let's not pretend that Sync is the antichrist for being the first Lemmy 3PA developer that is prioritizing sustainability after a decade of supporting users who paid $2

53
hempsterreply
lemm.ee

too steep for an app they might use for the next decade

Lemmy is still a niche and who knows what will happen in a decade

32

The Fediverse is still a pretty big experiment. The first thing I thought when I saw that Ultra lifetime price was if Lemmy would even still be as relevant as it is today (which isn't that high of a bar, mind you) in 5.5 years—the amount of time it would take for the lifetime purchase to pay off as a better deal than the yearly subscription.

Not only that, but it truly is a front end for Lemmy; not the service itself. I get that the dev has bills to pay and I guess that this is their only hustle (?), but $100 is a bit of an unreasonable ask in my opinion. If I were rich, I'd buy it. But I'm not, so there you go.

Not that anyone should care, but personally I'm waiting to see what Boost does, as that was what I used back in Reddit.

12

Even without it being a decade, people happily spend $20 to get 2 drinks at a bar, go see one movie, get one game (or one third of a AAA game), eat one meal at a restaurant, pay for parking once, or on a trinket or toy that looks neat on their desk.

Acting like $20 is steep for software is, imo, part of the reason we end up in this ad-supported model in the first place. A lot of people don't attribute the actual challenge of writing software and the value they get out of it because it's so abstract to them.

12

Exactly my point :) This platform is unstable & the userbase isn't dependable, especially so in the context of 3PA customers

How do you make this project viable/sustainable? Price it appropriately. I've already completed one decade with LJ & Sync, so I'm happy to bank on this app. And if it doesn't, that's the gamble - nobody is forced to agree, but it'd be odd for anyone to argue Sync should be priced in accordance with any expectation that the platform dies in the next year or so.

2
canuckkatreply
lemmy.world

I rather pay an annual subscription of $7 CAD than a one time fee of $30 CAD. Why not keep the spice money flowing in?

1

Because the money doesn't stop flowing out, with countless subscription services already, you gotta draw the line somewhere before finding yourself paying so much more for things you wouldn't have, just because you lost oversight of your costs.

Having the option for a one-time payment settles this discussion, it's fire and forget. Everybody have their choice now so why even bother trying to convince anyone.

0
lemm.ee

The number of users in lemmy is so low compared to reddit. Those who buy this app are way less here. In reddit there were 100k+ downloads. Here it is not even going to be half of it. So price change can be justified.

One point I like to say is yeah this price is too high for some third world countries. Region based pricing should be there. 20$ here is 10% of my income (entry level job). So it will take time for me to buy the app. Until then i support the ad driven model. I am getting far better user experience with this app than all other lemmy apps I have tried.

33
gigachadreply
feddit.de

That is true, however this is not really relevant for buying a product. And an app that relies on ads where you can buy premium for $20 is just that in my eyes, a commercial product, and that is fine. But dividing the costs between all users to estimate a price is weird to me, that's not how market works and ignores offer and demand. This argument is nothing a potential buyer would consider when buying an app. And $20 is a lot of money especially in todays time. I don't think I have seen a price like that apart from really big commercial apps. But yeah if you want to support, do that, but consider spending money to your instance instead and using one of the other great apps available.

22
no bananareply
lemmy.world

I'll be throwing some money to sync and some money to my instance.

2

They do not value other people's time and also do not realize that everything on the internet is free because of advertising

10
lemmy.world

it was 12.99 for a hot second if you grabbed it when it first went live. I was thinking about it, but then saw it went to 19.99 just recently. Imma gonna wait.

41

Yeah I was gonna grab it at 12.99 but then it got changed. I honestly thought it was gonna be 9.99 but oh well

16

An hour ago I would have sworn it was $16.99. I had to edit a bunch of comments where I told people the price.

16

I saw that, balked a bit and then went eh whatever i like sync so i bought it. I would have reacted differently at $20.

3
Auxreply
lemmy.world

Well, the author lives in London and £19 he asks for is like one meal in London.

9
yuriyreply
lemmy.world

i can feed myself for way less then that in the US. is there THAT big of a discrepancy, or do you mean eating out?

2

I mean eating out and not in McD. Of course you can cook at home and save a lot of money.

3

There was some talk on Discord about making the pricing regional, no idea on timeline though. But it does not sound reasonable if that's half a monthly entry salary for you!

3
lemmy.world

₹9900 for lifetime ultra, this is expensive. Entry level smartphones that the majority of Indians use costs much less than that.

39

It is not friendly to regional pricing. Can't really blame the dev since their own bill are probably in dollars, but I think I'll pass myself as it is fairly expensive for an app here. I could buy like 3 or 4 full video games for the price.

6

Just got the update and... Yeah, it's almost $100 on my currency. I'm not sure if I ever saw an app this expensive before, not that I buy a lot of apps, but still. Love the app and lj has always been awesome, but will have to pass :(

36
Crisreply
lemmy.world

$100 is a lifetime purchase of all the fancy features or whatever, 20 is just the one time purchase to remove ads

Sync isn't really the right fit for my needs/preferences, but I thought it'd be worthwhile to clarify

14
Crisreply
lemmy.world

Good lord, what? Can you post a screenshot?

2
normreply
lemmy.world

It looks like that 97.99 is 20 US dollars so that seems right.

9

Sim mano, lembro que paguei menos de 30 reais na versão dev do sync for reddit 😢

2
Crisreply
lemmy.world

$100 is a lifetime purchase of all the fancy features or whatever, 20 is just the one time purchase to remove ads

Sync isn't really the right fit for my needs/preferences, but I thought it'd be worthwhile to clarify

7

Yup, same here. I was ready to pay something around 10 to 20USD, but in no way am I ever paying close to 100USD in a mobile app like Sync.

Completely bonkers!

2
sopuli.xyz

way too expensive.
also no regional pricing?
I would never pay more then 8-10$ for a full game, let alone 20$ for lack of random black rectangles in a free app.

34

ah, right my fault.
apparently just having an American google account on your device forces all prices to be in usd.
installing from the play store web page remotely should make the app show the correct prices, but i haven't tried that yet.

2
1984reply
lemmy.today

I think you are bit stingy then. Or maybe you can't afford it I guess. But 8 dollars is nothing these days. It's a burger.

-27
voxelreply
sopuli.xyz

burger is 2-3$ here, around 1-1.5$ for a McDonald's cheeseburger (the cheapest option in the menu), i would rather buy like 10-15 burgers for that price.

12

Where is here? I'm jealous :) (of the mcd prices, don't know about the rest)

8

Yeah sorry, math is hard for my brain right now appearently.. :)

-5

I paid to remove the ads. I want to support the developer and this is the best Reddit app I used as well.

Having said that, this is a really steep price tbh and will be a hard sell for my friends. I am loyal to Sync and still see value in this price since I use it so much. But it really is steep.

33
lemmy.world

TWENTY DOLLARS ???? bro $20 for an ad-free version of an app is nuts

33
sporezreply
lemm.ee

Twenty dollars one time in a world of subscriptions for an app you use hours a day really isn’t that bad. Think how much you spend on other luxuries in your day to day and $20 doesn’t get you that much.

20
protputreply
lemmy.world

I also spend my days drinking tap water and breathing air. You can't say that because you use something every day that you have to pay an inflated price for it. Other developers also spend a lot of time on their apps and don't ask these absurd prices.

26
Kage520reply
lemmy.world

Honestly I far prefer outrageous prices for good stuff than "small" monthly fees everything is going to. I'd rather pay $50 than $2 per month. If Lemmy gets as popular as reddit, I will end up using it a ton and $20 really is small for all that.

2

If Lemmy gets as popular as reddit

You do realize how big of an if this is? Even for Lemmy to reach a fraction of Reddit's popularity. I want it to happen as much as you do, but let's be real here.

8

People would have just grabbed it if it was a much lower price. He'd have bagged an initial fortune.

Unfortunately, he's priced it such that people who are already feeling the pinch will question the price of the purchase and need justification.

7
bonobireply
lemmy.ml

I thought it was $20 for a year and $99 for lifetime?

3

The $99 is for sync ultra with ad free and extra services. For $20 you only get ad free. You can also subscribe to sync ultra for $20 per year.

Sync ultra provides services like an online translation that have to be paid by the developer. Thus the subscription.

2

WinRAR is in the same ball park. Seems reasonable. $20 is the pre Adpocalypse price for small software. It's the insanely low price of apps when Smartphones started that where off. Now we are back again.

3
lemmy.world

2000₹ for removing ads is too much. With that money one can buy a raspberry pi and set up pihole to block ads on their whole network.

31

People (including myself) gladly pay for convenience of being able to do it in the app, and that just works anywhere. Pihole is limited to your home, unless you go down the route of a personal VPN connection too.

2

This might be dumb but uhhh what ads? I've been using the app since launch and haven't seen a single one.

26
maniajackreply
lemmy.world

I initially got place holder blank white spaces but later in the day they were filling in with google adsense advertising.

13
Zhaoreply

Same. I've been using it since launch and haven't had an add yet. I bet it'll roll out by tonight though.

1

I do see the placeholders, but i guess DNS based adblocking is doing its job.

1
lemmy.world

Turns out the 2.99 for life doesn't quite keep the lights on anymore.

Maybe we just need to go back to paying for every major version. that way people can have what they want.

25

It could very well be economics of scale. How many people are using Lemmy and Sync for Lemmy compared to Reddit?

6
feddit.it

I don't exactly understand why the 20$ translate to 22€, when the euro is stronger than the dollar 🤔

23

Taxes. US prices are always net prices, as taxes are depending on which state you live in. 20 USD = 18.28 € + 19 % taxes (let's take the German one) = 21.75 €. If you are from Italy you are even better off, as with your VAT it would be 22 % = 22.3 €.

19

Paid. Haven't actually seen any ads. The only complaint that I have, is that u/spez doesn't get a notification, with a comment on the value of building brand loyalty through respect and support of your user base.

21
lemmy.world

Can anyone confirm, and this may have Already been answered.

Does the remove adds on the left pane, remove them for lifetime at 20$?

Edit: seems like 20$ will be ads removed lifetime but No fancy features.

20

Edit: seems like 20$ will be ads removed lifetime but No fancy features.

As far as I can tell this is the case. Fair enough with how long Sync for Reddit lasted.

I saw someone saying there would be an ultra lifetime payment option coming as well, although not a part of the discord so can't confirm that.

9
lemmy.world

I've just checked, the lifetime price is showing up as £95.99 to me ($120) that seems a bit steep!

19

$100 is a lifetime purchase of all the fancy features or whatever, 20 is just the one time purchase to remove ads

I'll probably stick to something open source for myself, but wanted to clarify

8

They're spread out nicely and are just simple picture ads that aren't trying to grab your attention.

8
lemmy.ml

In Israel it's $100 for lifetime!!! This shit is insane lol what the fuck?!

16

That's for ultra. (and it's pretty much the same price everywhere) If you just want the ad-free version it should be ~$20. Tap the profile icon in the top left corner, then "remove ads".

13

I wish ljd would do regional pricing. There are parts of the world where $20 is prohibitively expensive.

15

I fully recognize I'm in a position of relative privilege, but I am more than happy paying an annual subscription of <$20 for an app like this.

Building an app of this quality with this level of polish is a massive time investment, and I'm more than happy to reward that time with less money per year than I spent doordashing lunch this afternoon because I was too lazy to make myself a sandwich.

14

Really slick and professional looking app but, you gotta make price adjustments for the purchasing power. Especially for the ad removal option. My income and ad revenues you will be getting from me are way less than that of the US and EU users.

13

I would probably buy premium if it was $20 but $99 is way too high.

And $20 just to remove ads is also a lot, at least for me. I have a dns level ad blocker and it's needed these days in the extreamly hostile user environment we exist in.

10
lemmy.world

god, honestly this has kinda turned me off even trying sync at all. liftoff works fine, and these devs are neither asking me for money, nor showing me advertisements.

i sincerely hope no one is out here thinking they’re gonna earn a living with an unofficial-app for a fledgling social media service, for which there currently exists no fewer than ELEVEN other fully featured apps in the google play store.

9
lemmy.world

And that's a perfectly fine and respectable position to have. In the mean time, I'm gonna go find where I can enter my credit card

9
FlagonOfMereply
sh.itjust.works

I've used 5 of them. Not a single one is what I would call "fully featured" compared to the million features I loved in Sync for Reddit. Sync for Lemmy promises to be as good, but for Lemmy. That's worth money to me. If that doesn't describe you, or most people, then OK.

4
yuriyreply
lemmy.world

i’ve used 3 and none of them were missing features i needed, what are you referring to exactly? lack of messages is something i’ve seen, and i don’t make use of them myself so i admit i wouldn’t notice them missing. what is there beyond that, customization options?

i’m not trying to be a shit by the way, i’m genuinely curious.

0
FlagonOfMereply
sh.itjust.works
  • A comment and post draft system. You can save drafts to restore them later. It's really nice when writing an "effort comment" (kinda like this one) and you want to resume it later.
  • When submitting something, it saves a temporary draft in case the submission fails. Several times I wrote a long comment in another Lemmy app and then lost the entire thing when the submission failed.
  • A ton of customizations, so many options and view modes. Customizable actions menu. Excellent contextual button.
  • Cleanest interface of any app I've used.
  • Biometric lock for opening the app or changing accounts.
  • Masked usernames in the account switcher for privacy when showing the app to someone.
  • Can pin favorite communities at the top of the subscriptions panel.
  • Separate settings per account. (Kind of a drawback sometimes. It really needs an easier way to sync settings between accounts.)
  • Backup all your settings to a file. (Which can be used to sync settings between accounts.)
  • Can submit a comment as a different account than the one you're browsing with. (Useful for a quick reply which you don't want to make as your official account. I like to keep stuff like politics out of my account that's associated with my real-person online presence.)
  • Long-pressing any setting in the app copies a link to that setting to the clipboard. When pasted in a comment or post, other Sync users can tap the link to go straight to that setting. Useful because there are so many settings!
  • All replies to a top-level comment can be collapsed by default with an option. This is great because the top-level replies are the most important, and then you get to choose which conversations to open.
  • Each comment has a button to jump to the patent comment, and long-pressing that button jumps to the top-level comment of that thread. This is excellent when a comment thread has hundreds of replies and you're done with it and just want to collapse the entire thread and read the next top-level comment.
  • Speaking of comment navigation, the reddit version had a handy, optional comment navigator UI. Not sure if it's here yet. It's there!
  • You can search settings. Really nice to find A specific setting fast, or all settings related to "comments", etc. I just used it to determine that the comment navigator does exist in the version and I just turned it on.

I could probably think of more if I spent more time on it.

Liftoff was the best alternative app I used, but it's not as customizable. It also had a confusing account switcher. In fact, you didn't switch accounts at all. You switched instances and had a default account per instance. Switching accounts on one instance required you to open the settings and change your default user for that instance and then switch to that instance. It was even more confusing because you were allowed to change users when viewing the Inbox, but that had no effect on who was actually logged in. I made several comments under the wrong account while using the app because it was so confusing.

3
yuriyreply
lemmy.world

golly, lotta good QOL in there! thank you for taking the time to type up this reply, and extra thank you for not talking down at all. people really do be getting spicy about this lol

4

I've got some more.

  • You can long-press (and hold) a thumbnail to peek at the full image it came from without loading the link in the browser. Sometimes I see an interesting pic like some recipe, and I just want a closer look without loading the entire recipe site. Also works great to see YouTube thumbnails in detail.
  • You can change the default feed from Local, Everything, Subscriptions, or even a single community (and have it be different per account).

Here's a partial screenshot of the image peeking:

1
lemmy.world

Will there be a premium app in the store? I recall the reddit version with IAP periodically having issues with purchases not being recognized. I'd rather spend my money on that then.

8

Google doesn't permit multiple versions of the same app anymore plus the dev already fixed that issue 1 year ago

11

$25 / €23 in Norway. That's pretty pretty steep (งツ)ว

7
lemm.ee

15 euros in eastern Europe

6

Yesterday it was 69,99 PLN which was rather high but not that bad, but today I saw the price went up to 99,99 PLN. As much as I like Sync I'm not going to pay this much to remove ads.

3
lemmy.world

I bought the yearly subscription before there was a lifetime option. Is it possible to switch?

5
httpjamesreply
sh.itjust.works

Cancel your subscription on Play, go to Sync Ultra settings and click the Reset button at the bottom.

4

Thanks. I cancelled my subscription, updated the app, and saw the jaw dropping price of $99. Turns out you can pay $20 to remove ads through the Profile menu on the top left. That was what I wanted all along.

1

£18.99

Is the pound near parity with the dollar again? Or is this that ballshit where you don't factor in your taxes but we do?

4

Thank you! This is what I wanted. Paid as soon as it appeared. Worked out to be about $30 cad, worth it to me.

4

It's pretty steep. But I appreciate the option at least. I generally hate apps that only give subscriptions so at least it's here and the dev has every right to charge what he feels it is worth (likewise you have every right to not see that value). I'll probably pick it up in a few weeks

4
lemmy.world

Before saying that the ad-free version is not 19.99, please update your app to the latest version. You will see the new option to only buy lifetime ad-free.

2
Peregrinusreply
lemmy.world

I think people mean regional pricing. for example in Australia this means $34. you can buy Microsoft Office for that price. I love the product and I may spend that but it's still high.

7
Knightfallreply
lemmy.ca

What provinces are you two? I wonder if that's a factor.

3

I do agree with the sentiment that the price is a tad steep. I think $10 is a more agreeable price imo.

Personally I still prefer the $17 a month considering that backing up my settings through the cloud is an important and convenient feature since I own multiple devices and 8 lemmy profiles (don't ask why lol). Hopefully LDJ has a desktop version.

1
dub
lemmy.world

People in this thread spending $100++ on SKINS in a video game : 🤑🤑🤑

Same people Spending $20 to support the app you use hundreds of times a day : 😡🤬

0
Sentaureply
lemmy.one

Yeah I don't think people who spend money on skins in games are people who use lemmy and hence by extension sync for lemmy

31
lemmy.world

What's the logic here? People that buy skins are not enough intelligent to be on lemmy?

-1
Sentaureply
lemmy.one

My logic is that people that buy skins and play games with such micro transactions must not be bothered by the actions of reddit and hence few of them would have migrated to lemmy

14
dubreply
lemmy.world

I guarantee you there's enough overlap. If I look at a League of Legends, lemmy community. You don't think most of those people have spent hundreds of dollars on skins?

-3

Yeah I don't know man. The community has like 43 average users a month. So while the subset of people who spend money on skins and care enough about reddits anti consumer like practices is not null, it is small nonetheless.

5

You can get LoL skins for free, you just have to play a lot. On the other hand, I bought a few skins and bought ad free Sync.

1
spidermanreply
ani.social

I get that developer needs to eat and I kinda fully support it but I think it would be good to have a region based pricing. I think $20 would not be much to a person in US or other first world countries while it would be kinda bit much for people in 3rd world countries (where their currency isn't strong) like India.

10

It would be nice but then everyone would use vpn right?

2

Then... Don't buy it? Or use it with ads. Seems simple enough. There's a ton of other apps to use if you need

My fault I misread what you said. I think regional prices would be great.

-3
safreply
lemmy.world

It's showing up as $169 aud for me (in Australia)

8

Don't buy Ultra, just click Remove Ads instead.

3

Actually I never buy skins for more than like $ 20 dollars either... It's not worth more to look cool in a game.

5

I didn't even flinch paying the money. Sync for Reddit was my most used app over the last decade and glad to have it back (I didn't do the work around). I've already gotten more engaged in Lemmy and plan to be way more active.

0
lemmy.world

I'm very happy to support a $20 ad free purchase. Did it immediately. Google Play credits paid for all of it, but even if it didn't id do it anyways. This is all great and jldawson is great. $20 come on guys. It's so worth it.

p.s. Download the Google Rewards app which occasionally will give you a 2-5 question survey and it will pay you between .10-.90 per survey. I get the surveys all the time.

-4

Holy shit, I thought google is a bad guy.

Are they offering me €3.99/mo just for subscribing?

1

I hate Google so that's a no... They pay you peanuts while earning billions.

Google is being rewarded, not you... :)

1
lemmy.world

Honestly I think 20 usd is reasonable. I think people here are being weird. That's like the price of a book or indie game on steam - surely an app that you read on every day is worth that?

Also Lemmy will continue to grow so the value will just increase.

-4
lemmy.world

$20? It's showing $100 for me. I'd do $20. $100 is too rich for my blood

2

Removing ads and lifetime ultra are different things.

8
herbhreply
lemmy.world

Yeah same. I was debating $20 but definitely not paying $100. Sorry not sorry.

4
chairmanreply
lemmy.world

You need to update your app to the new beta. Ad-free only option is separate, does not cost $100+.

1
lemmy.world

I downloaded the app about 20 minutes ago, and Lifetime Ultra is $169.99 for me in Australia. Am I doing something wrong?

4
lemm.ee

Remove ads is its own menu item, clicking it directly shows you the payment prompt.

3

Are you looking for Ultra lifetime or ad-free lifetime? If you are looking for adsfree lifetime, it's a different option and obviously not Ultra lifetime. They are not the same.

1
lemmy.world

$20 is steep for an app, but I wanted to check it out to my surprise when it says lifetime is $99 in the app instead

10
Ramblerreply
lemm.ee

Yeah, the $99 looks like it's for the ultra edition - cloud sync and all. The lower price seems to be just ad removal. Correct me if I'm wrong - I'm often told I am.

7

Ultra is the only option I see. Is there another?

Edit: yeah I missed the "remove ads" option in the menu, I was in settings where I only see ultra.

2