It's steep compared to the other options that just don't have them and offer largely the same experience. I keep hearing that Sync is miles ahead of other apps. It just isn't.

A good app? Yes. $20 ahead of other apps that just don't have ads? No.

I edited my above comment to reflect another point, that if all these people are happy to pay $20 to remove ads from Sync, hopefully they're paying their instances to actually keep Lemmy running.

[–] ChronosWing@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It is though, it's miles better than any free alternative I've tried. I couldn't even stand to use lemmy until sync was released because of just how bad the free alternatives were. Sync for Lemmy just works and the UX is the best available that is also highly customizable. The Sync dev is one guy who has bills to pay, he always interacts and listens to feedback and is constantly updating the app. It was the same when it was a Reddit app and it was worth paying for then as well. Why is it so hard to fathom that some people deserve to be paid for their hard work?

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's not hard to fathom -- but that's not the issue. The dev decided to make an ad-supported app in an ocean of free, no-ad apps. In the views of some folks, the ads and the cost to remove them are too much. Some say it's worth it; some say it isn't. That's the beauty of free choice.

The dev could have opted to take donations if they wanted to try to recoup development costs. Frankly, they could have read the room and noted that there's a limited market. Given that there are numerous other options available (many of which are free and open source by choice), it's a hard sell to say one dev should independently be paid simply because they chose to be regardless of the market condition. This isn't a moral or ethical issue -- it's someone arbitrarily throwing a number out for payment for an app that runs on a free and open source platform.

The Sync dev is one guy who has bills to pay, he always interacts and listens to feedback and is constantly updating the app.

This describes the situation with most of the other devs working on the alternative apps. They've been extremely quick with fixes and improvements. Again, no ads in those. Sync is not the standout you seem to think it is.

Why is it so hard to fathom that some people deserve to be paid for their hard work?

If anyone should be paying for anything on Lemmy, it's for the hosting of Lemmy itself. Sync can't load anything but its ads without that. I certainly hope people follow this logic when asked to pay for their bandwidth, which is the only place it seems to actually apply.

But hey, to each their own -- if people want to pay $20 to cut the ads on one specific app, they should absolutely do that. Don't frame it as anything other than that though; it's simply disingenuous.

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.world -3 points 1 year ago

No. The dev created sync for Reddit years ago. With the same kind of pricing options.

Those of us who love the app and decided to migrate when Reddit totally fucked him and others over kind of begged for a lemmy version.

Sync is for us folks, primarily. Clearly not for you or the other folks getting bent out of shape.

I don't see why anyone needs to get so vocal over someone porting their existing app to lemmy. I find it baffling.

But I guess folks need something to complain about or something.