I think the bigger issue is that you can't afford a $20 one time fee for a highly polished app that will get a massive amount of usage. I know it's a tough economy but $20 isn't a crazy amount of money.

[–] Ganbat@lemmyonline.com 6 points 1 year ago

The most I've ever paid for an app is $15 for a highly-featured launcher that is now literally the core element of my phone use. This pricing just does not make sense when compared to the rest of the Android ecosystem.

Additionally, I don't know if I would call it "highly polished." I'd say it looks fine and browsing feels, well, like browsing, but I used it for a couple days and comments seemed to be totally bugged. They were appearing out of order, disappearing seemingly randomly and I think some where even attaching to the wrong parents, because there were things I was reading that just didn't make any sense.

[–] BedSharkPal@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

It's so weird how it DOES seem expensive for an app feature. But like you said in the grand scheme it's actually incredibly cheap. It's a meal at McDs!

[–] PurpleTentacle@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

It's 22€ (24.50 USD) here. To the commenter who said that's "one MacDonald,'s meal", every single large McMenu here is under 10€. With the usual coupons, you're looking at the cost of McDonald's for my entire family, not just one meal.

I can still, comfortably, afford blowing that much money on an app. But it doesn't even get me any of the many "Ultra" features (that's 110€). Looking at the Ultra page, ljdawson has already made clear that almost all planned Lemmy quality of life features will be pay-gated.

It's also a huge gamble: we have no idea how financially viable Sync will be in a much smaller and far more hostile to non-FOSS apps, community. Heck, I opted out of tracking (like most EU-members of Lemmy would have) and the app isn't even loading any ads at all, the revenue generated for ljdawson is zero.

Ljdawson has already suspended development of the original Reddit client on at least one occasion even though it was massively successful. Don't think for a second he won't cut his losses and run if he doesn't consider the Lemmy client a financial success. The "lifetime" purchase might buy you another 10 years of maintained and polished usage, it might buy you six months. It's a gamble.

Instead of blowing the cost of a small (McDonald's) or a large (Amusement Park) family outing on my second-favorite former Reddit client, I'm waiting for Boost to come out, with hopefully slightly more sensible pricing.

[–] preussischblau@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I reckon since he mentioned the lack of regional pricing, he's probably from a developing country where 20 USD is a crazy amount of money for a Lemmy app. Whatever "side" you're on, I think regional pricing is an extremely reasonable request.