This one dude has made this app for years and constantly updates it, fixes things, is responsive, and makes a great app. He's now been more loyal to his users longer than Reddit has, and I personally have used his app daily for 13 years.

Yeah, I'll happily pay for it.

FOSS is great but it doesn't pay the rent people, this guy is doing this mostly as his main gig. This isn't some huge corpo, it's one guy who makes his living building the app he loves. I'm sure he'd love to make it FOSS if he didn't have to pay bills on anything.

[–] sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf 75 points 1 year ago (15 children)

FOSS can pay the rent. But the users that will complain about £20 for a lifetime of ad removal, definitely aren't going to be the ones that help him should the bank come calling about late mortgage payments.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 83 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

This is the same crap I left /r/Linux for way back in the day, so so so many people who are all "Linux is the best way and you're stupid for even considering windows or mac" but unable to see realities. Yes, of course I love linux and FOSS, I use it as my primary driver, but we live in a society where free work doesn't pay for housing.

You're exactly right, most of the "FOSS Open Source supreme" people will look at an app that was lovingly crafted for months, call it garbage, and then demand they make it free. I just can't even with them.

Meanwhile I'd love to see the stats on how many hours a week they put into FOSS apps on their own, and if they've given up their jobs to code for FOSS apps for the good of the community.

I'm a developer. I code mostly proprietary stuff for my company. I'd gladly go code for FOSS projects, but so far my bank is just completely unwilling to cancel my mortgage payments, and my electricity, water, sewer, internet, they all want to be paid too, so unfortunately I'm stuck doing this.

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[–] kamenoko@sh.itjust.works 28 points 1 year ago

Upvoted via Sync lol. FOSS is great, FOSS is irreplaceable, but for independent programmers FOSS doesn't pay the rent.

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[–] Sharkwellington@lemmy.one 116 points 1 year ago

[–] db2@sopuli.xyz 116 points 1 year ago

Nobody Cares Jurassic Park meme about Sync not being open source

[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 94 points 1 year ago (3 children)

FOSS is great but also developers' gotta eat

[–] GrouchyLady@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Amen. And he got screwed from the Reddit api fiasco. If i remember correctly he was on the hook for as much as $250k in refunds because he's had to shut the app down and refund subscribers.

The guy has to make a living, so I don't begrudge him that one bit.

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[–] dogebread@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I love the idea of Lemmy itself being FOSS but individual instances and apps being a competitive marketplace of for profit businesses.

That way profitable entities with skin in the game can contribute back to the core, as can anyone, while ensuring the communities exist on servers that actually have some kind of monetization.

[–] Paradoxvoid@aussie.zone 13 points 1 year ago

Exactly! This is the playbook for how Linux has gained such a mainstay - while GNU/Linux on the desktop may still be pretty small, the extensibility and open-source nature of the platform has meant it's been able to take over on all sort of alternative platforms - Android and Steam Deck being the big ones in the consumer space, but also larger distros being used regularly in enterprise/web hosting.

If everyone had refused to embrace Android or Steam Deck or any of the other distros run and maintained by for-profit corporations due to some preconceived idea of what the 'correct' way to use Linux is, it would still be doomed to irrelevance outside of tech circles.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 year ago

developers’ what

[–] Chronova@citizensgaming.com 46 points 1 year ago (17 children)

I'm using Sync right now. I've tried a few different lemmy apps and this is the only one that actually works without bugs. Maybe because it's a paid developers full time job and not just some free side project?

I do wish it wasn't a subscription. Apps are generally a flat fee.

[–] dbilitated@aussie.zone 18 points 1 year ago

yeah I think I'll go to the ad removal fee. it's expensive but I use it a lot 🤷‍♂️

I originally did the monthly sub because I didn't have an option and that was the cheapest, it is kinda pricey but it's light years ahead of what I was using

also I'm a developer and I think the guy who made it has probably working like mad to make this, and if it's his sole income and it got pulled out from under him... idk. it's a gamble to not just go get a 9-5 and work on this instead

bro has to eat and I already donate to my local instance.

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[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

The three stages of a long-term FOSS user:

How the fuck do I do anything? I'm so lost.
I've somewhat mastered how to use it and became a power user. I'm happy about this, I've developed a sense of superiority over those who don't use it, and will now promote it constantly to others like a goddamn cult. My SO has left me and my family has disowned me, but I don't care, they are too ignorant to be as enlightened as I am.
(A decade or two later) I don't even give a fuck anymore what somebody uses, this still works for me, and what works for you, works for you. Let's just all coexist. OS and app development models don't mean shit, common standards and protocols between them do. As long as I, a Linux user, can email a PNG to a Mac user and they can open it, we're good.

It's been like this since the mid-90s. Most of the people who are being annoying about it are in stage 2.

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[–] SyJ@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Don't forget this is a community built around Open Source software with many refugees who came because proprietary apps were forced on them.

[–] kamenoko@sh.itjust.works 48 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

The Lemmy protocol is open source and you're free to use an open source solution. You're free to use sync for Lemmy in much the same way you can run a Spotify client in Linux. One does not destroy the other.

Tldr if you don't like it, don't use it.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

but shouldn't I go online and complain about it loudly?

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[–] FinancedPizza@lemming.quest 23 points 1 year ago

The great part of the fediverse is that everyone can use whatever they want. Personally I stick to Foss clients though.

[–] HRDS_654@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (13 children)

I am currently using Sync, and while I agree that the UX is better I can also understand why so many on the Fediverse are against similar apps. They are here because corporations have ruined every other good thing on the internet and non-FOSS is very much associated with big corporations. While I would prefer that Sync were FOSS I also see the reality of Western society and how untenable creating an app would be without some kind of ad revenue. A majority of people are notoriously stingy and donations can only get you so far.

[–] Rossel@sh.itjust.works 33 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Also, Sync is one dev working full time by himself, not a big corp.

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[–] kenbw2@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

I don't mind so much that it's not FOSS. Developer needs paying, fair enough

I want an app without an egregious Privacy Policy that doesn't bundle code that shares "Usage Data" with advertisers

[–] SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Everyone is always promoting that app, so I don't understand why y'all are butthurt when anyone complains about it.

[–] Album@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's almost like the internet is a collective of different voices and not one unified entity...

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[–] lillesael@feddit.dk 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Just gonna leave this here...

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

As I understand it Sync could charge for the app with a free software license, but wouldn't be able to stop people copying or distributing it.

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[–] only0218@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Infinity for the rescue

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[–] pacoboyd@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Came from using Sync for probably close to a decade on Reddit, so I'm definitely a creature of habit switching back for it on Lemmy. That being said, I tried ALL the apps looking for a solid experience and nothing delivers like Sync (opinion). All of them were missing something that completed my experience, was that experience coloured by my time with Sync on Reddit, sure. For all the options Sync gives me I'm willing to pay the dev half the cost of a steak dinner. I've already spent 100x longer on Sync for Lemmy than it would take me to eat said steak.

As for FOSS, let's just say it's not the be all / end all. Look at all the options that Sync brought to the table in a month that Lemmy hasn't added in the whole of its development.

Personally I feel like most of the folks complaining about Ads in Sync are just complaining to complain. The FOSS crowd is also the most likely to use ad blocking, filtered dns providers, pi-hole, adguard etc and if that's the case they won't even see a single Ad.

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[–] ReakDuck@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago

Dude, at least people don't use Reddit is what I think about this situation.

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