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The price is very reasonable if you realize the economy of scale is not there yet. There is only about 100,000 monthly active Lemmy users right now. Even if 1% of those users bought the app at $20, the dev only net ~$14,000 for working on his app full time. The calculus will surely different if Lemmy have 10x more active users which will allow the dev to lower the app pricing while still sustaining himself.
So you’re basically saying wait until the lemmy user base grows and see if the dev drops the price. That would lead to a lot of the OG buyers getting angry.
They shouldn’t get mad if what they say about gladly supporting the sync developer is true. I meant, isn’t it weird to get mad when something you bought actually got lower price a few years in the future? Like buying a game for $60 at launch and then some patient gamers bought them for $10 a few years later. Why angry at that?
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To be fair, you paid once 7 years ago but the developer didn’t stop working on the app and didn’t make you pay for the upgrades they implemented if anything they have discovered the original price was too low for long term use.
I paid a similar price to that over a decade ago and don’t consider this price to be totally unreasonable given they are full time on this now and will need to keep updating the app as lemmy gets updated.
We also have so many alternatives that it isn’t an issue if people want to use something that is free. We are in the wild west of lemmy apps due to the Reddit fallout, things will quieten down eventually and a preferred few apps will come out on top.
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I paid the $30 for Lifetime Ultra after 7 years of using Dev/Pro just to support. But this new pricing is simply insane. I get the feeling LJ quit his day job to rush Sync for Lemmy out or something, because historically he never seemed to do this kind of thing.
And that included a few features that are now ultra only like tagging users. (and maybe more, that was the one I used and noticed is missing from pro now)
Posted from Connect for Reddit
I assume you mean lemmy, right?
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that’s us inflation maybe but LJ lives in the UK and I can tell you it’s a lot worse than that for us the bank of england says a certain inflation rate that isn’t that high like 30% over the last year but that’s a lie it feels like the cost of everything including food has at least tripled over the last year or two maybe more sync at its end was a fiver and hadn’t gone up in a few years so if you triple that you get 15 which yeah is below 20 by a quarter but S4R lasted 10 years before it died only cause of reddit I don’t think that’s a bad price to pay for a lifetime of adless sync sync is ljs job so it’s only natural the price is gonna go up with food going up this much 20 quid for 10 years or more of updates for an app I use constantly isn’t a bad deal
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The real reason is the development cost stay the same, but the pool of potential buyers is 100x less for Sync for Lemmy compared to Sync for Reddit. With only about 100,000 monthly active users on Lemmy, even if 1% of them bought the app at $20, the dev would only net about $14,000 (after 30% play store fee). The dev himself even said he’ll lower the price as the number of active Lemmy users grow.
I think a lot of the outrage is the people that used to use the app on Reddit but have been priced out by this strategy. It’s very disappointing and, if my time on Reddit has tought me anything, people are very quick to vent the frustrations by posting.
The healthy thing is to just find an option in the right price bracket, that’s how I found Voyager.
You can use it but only sarcastically
Please please please use punctuation.
I think they are using shitty speech-to-text software that does not do punctuation.
FTFY:
That’s US inflation, maybe – but LJ lives in the UK and I can tell you: it’s a lot worse than that for us. The Bank of England says a certain inflation rate that isn’t that high (like 30% over the last year) but that’s a lie. It feels like the cost of everything, including food, has at least tripled over the last year or two, maybe more. Sync at its end was £5 and hadn’t gone up in a few years, so if you triple that you get £15 – which, yeah, is below £20 by a quarter – but Sync4Reddit lasted 10 years before it died only ‘cause of Reddit. I don’t think that’s a bad price to pay for a lifetime of adless Sync. Sync is LJ’s job so it’s only natural the price is gonna go up with food going up this much. £20 for 10 years or more of updates for an app I use constantly isn’t a bad deal.
People in the UK can’t afford punctuation anymore
no
I think you’re using bad speech-to-text software. There are alternatives with good “AI” auto-punctuation based on your tone of speech.
no I’m writing by hand I just hate punctuation
You never read any punctuation-free text by anyone else, did you?
Has nothing to do with inflation but economies of scale, his userbase here will be a fraction of the reddit one.
And this is exactly why I bought the app without thinking. I paid $1.99 for Reddit Sync in 2012 and have been using it since then. I consider buying the new app payment for all the value I’ve gotten out of the app and the developers work over the past 11 years.
It’s been $33.99 AUD since it was released.
Typical for Australia though tbh, getting the shit end of the deal
Strictly speaking, everyone is getting the shit end of the deal. Reddit Sync was 4 quid, one off payment.
$37.99 NZD here
Imho 15 eur is actually a fair price. In my country you can get a McDonald’s meal for that price that satisfies me once whereas Sync satisfies me everyday 😄. And 25 still seems okay to me for a nice app like this. I can imagine a lot of effort is put in this app. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
I used to use sync pro for Reddit. I now have connect and sync for Lemmy installed. Connect seems better in every way? What features is it missing?
One thing I’ve not seen any other Reddit* or Lemmy app do that Sync does, is preserve the “position” of comments. If you enter a thread, scroll down half way, then go back, enter a different thread, leave that one, and come back to the previous thread - you’ll still be at the same spot.
This is nice for me when I accidentally swipe the wrong way and end up on the previous page, or something happens to catch my mind just as I’m going back a page.
Specifically, I like a lot of things about Connect but I’ve found that there’s no decent separation between different comments/posts. Aside from Sync though, I really like Summit.
*Apollo somewhat did this, IIRC you had to use the swipe forward gesture in order to return to the previous position. But if you loaded another thread (or even just did a regular click of the same thread), that didn’t work. I also haven’t been on iOS for a while now so I could be out of date on that.
I’ve been using a forked version of Infinity for Reddit. The comment position is the number one thing I’ve been missing with it.
It was so nice to just swipe out of the comments to look at the original post again.
I was using connect before I moved to sync (I had used it forever on Reddit) and connect is so much more janky while scrolling or viewing/dismissing images. Sync is smooth and feels way more polished.
Just try sync for some time and you’ll notice a huge difference.
fr, the performance, look, features, customization of Sync for reddit were out of this world, I am sure this will continue for sync for lemmy too
Customization and polish, for one.
Inflation
For the amount of hours a week I spent in Sync for Reddit and the price I paid then for removing ads, I feel that 20 euros is cheap to remove ads in Sync for Lemmy and would have paid more.
However I understand the price might feel steep up front for new users. An initial trial without ads for a short while might be a solution, where users only start to see ads after using it for a bit so they can test run the app without being disturbed by ads.
Yeah, if Relay showed up with an app for KBin and wanted $30, I’d give it in a heartbeat, but being a long time user, I’d also feel like it’s partially back pay for using it for years after only paying like $4
As it is, I’m really looking forward to Artemis launching and will probably do an equal donation of at least that much to its dev and to Ernest (/KBin social admin and /KBin dev).
The /KBin PWA isn’t bad for what it is, but god damn do I miss using a proper app. At least y’all on Lemmy have options!
it really depends on what you value
Of course, it’s all relative and personal.
There’s no ads in Lemmy.
There’s no ads, yet.
ads in lemmy would be a hard to implement thing, it would need to be done on the instance level… and people would just jump ship to another instance that didn’t have ads. and it’s possible that it could post ads as posts that get federated but it sounds like an amazing way to potentially get your instance defederated in concern that it’s going to devolve to constant spam.
I mean, right now, yeah. But these instances use resources, which means they’re not free. Someone needs to cover the bill. I remember when YouTubers were put on blast when they started running ads and now it’s normal.
Or there might be instances that are specific paid and that’s known. Like an OnlyLemmy or something.
I’m soso happy to pay $2/mo for Ultra, very cheap for what it gives me. Miles better than any other app, keep it up!
It’s not miles better than either infinity or voyager.
It baffles me the amount of pushback the $2 a month is getting. I guess it says alot about the demographic browsing Lemmy…I’m happy to support the dev. For the amount of time I’ve used on sync it’s 100% worth every penny.
You must be new if you’re surprised lemmy is mostly privacy and security conscious folk who prefer foss.
Valuing privacy, security, and FOSS doesn’t have to mean unwilling to pay for quality software though.
It does mean unwilling to pay for closed source software.
They say behind a VPN.
Yeah, I trust the business model where their reputation depends on keeping my data private an order of magnitudes more than the business model that is literally selling it.
If that’s your mentality it shouldn’t matter whether the software is paid or free as in beer. I’m generally in that group, but I’m pretty pragmatic about using some closed source software when it’s non-critical to my life…
A Lemmy app where tons of alternative clients exist and everyone I’m doing is more or less public anyways… Yeah that doesn’t need to be free software.
You keep missing the point, I’m done with it.
I can’t post or search on the app yet… It’s objectively the worst Lemmy app currently. I loved Sync for Reddit, but charging more for a product missing basic features is questionable.
Lol none of what you said is true.
You’re talking stupid for no reason
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/umBW0Saa_WY
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
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Thank! I’ll be sure to donate some here as well.
Is this a bot or something spamming the same message to anyone? Either way you’re being pushy, stop it. I’m going to block you.
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I’ve seen 4 posts in the last two days that have solidified the fact I will never even TRY Sync. Dev seems like a real scumbag. I’m pretty happy with Liftoff so far.
Ok, I don’t agree with the price and all the people that are answering with excuses about pricing more because Lemmy has less users, so people have to pay more for a platform that is still on their early years? That honestly makes no sense to me.
Said that, Laurence (Sync dev) is a really awesome person.
The amount of work and feedback he replies to, makes Sync, while closes source, feels like a collaborative software.
So… No he’s definitely not a scumbag.
Regardless of what you think of the pricing, the dev is not a “scumbag”.
I used Sync for Reddit for many years, and he is without a doubt the most responsive and accommodating app dev I’ve ever encountered. Always updating the community, always looking into improvements, and always friendly and helpful. Not to mention extremely skilled at what he does, as you would discover if you tried Sync (even in its free form).
Your accusation is absolutely over the top and completely contrary to reality. Of course you’re free to use whatever app you like, and to disagree with the Sync pricing policy. But there’s no need or justification for talking about him like that.
Check out Infinity if you haven’t already. It’s an early port though.
https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy/releasesI was trying different apps since Infinity was my go to for Reddit but I caved and downloaded it this morning. Honestly it’s just a great app that works even as an early port. I’m sold again.
Oddly enough I think Jerboa was my second favorite for Lemmy. It’s just so incredibly basic in functionality that it feels lacking. First impressions back then weren’t good though, as it simply crashed constantly. Infinity has a lot of features, but the options menu is quite messy.
I’m at the point where if Sync ad-free is $10 USD I’m in there, but it just doesn’t do enough that Jerboa doesn’t for me to spend an entire $20 rn.
What the heck?! This is actually a great app with an actual working tablet landscape mode and looks great! Thank you!
It’s 21,99€ for me 🧐
He’s working on region pricing
Greed.
I signed up for a year of Ultra yesterday, more as a show of support. I’m already regretting it after seeing how many tiers of pricing are now being shoved out.
I get the dev has to eat, but this is completely going against everything Lemmy is supposed to be about, while costing significantly more than its Reddit counterpart.
While not necessary, it would have been nice if there was a small discount for Ultra subscribers of Sync for Reddit. I got just over 1 year of usage out of my ‘lifetime’ purchase. A gesture, even a small one, would have been nice.
I’ve just been soured over this whole thing, tbh.
I added the new price tiers based on user feedback on here after launching.
Maybe you should consider further regional prices. Here in Argentina it is U$S 20. I really want to support the app, but it is quite steep given our conversion rate and average income…
I paid for ad removal, considering lifetime ultra but this price is very steep. I have no idea if Lemmy is even around a few years from now. Could you confirm or deny that this price for ultra is here to stay?
Also, would it be possible to get a discount on ultra lifetime later if you already bought ad removal?
I put in for a yearly ultra subscription and I’d do it again. Not everybody here is a FOSS crusader or hanging around on /c/piracy. Some of us are just Reddit refugees that want our Sync back because it was awesome.
Hell, just add a built in pirate mode for these people that removes ads for free. I bet most of us would gladly pay anyway, and it will hopefully put an end to all the sobbing
It’s more like blackmail tbh. “Pay or i’ll track the shit out of you and sell the data to advertisers”. I can see why people are put off, and I am also. And what’s the guarantee if we pay that the data isn’t collected and sold anyway?
That’s totally reasonable from the point of view of a developer who has to earn something to live. I mean you still have the choice to not use it. The internet simply works through user tracking and advertising
Gawd, tinfoil hats are in right now!
How’s it tinfoil hat? It’s very clear how much tracking is going on if you don’t subscribe. None of this stuff is made up.
I think he meant your last part. You say there is a chance that LJ will collect and sell data, although you paid for premium. That’s a unnecessary accusation.
My last part was a question, not an accusation.
We call that JAQing off and it’s never just a question.
“They don’t answer me, conclusion is they do that thing I disagree with even if I don’t have proof of it.”
Right out of the alt-right playbook but applied outside of politics.
There’s a difference between “There’s a lot tracking happening if you don’t pay!” and “What’s the guarantee you don’t track us if we pay?” and that difference comes in the form of a hat… Made of tinfoil…
Notice how it was a question? See this ‘?’
Then don’t use it if that bothers you. It’s not blackmail lol
You can stop using that for free, you can continue using it for free with ads, you can subscribe and use it without ads, you can buy lifetime access and use it without ads
So many options
Plenty of options for people with plenty of money.
I’ve seen a lot of websites do the same thing. Either allow cookies or pay
I appreciate that, but your pricing is still still disproportionately high, especially when compared to the number of fantastic free alternatives out there.
I love your app, and I’ve supported you as a Pro and Ultra member on Sync for Reddit as well, but I really think you should reconsider the current subscription pricing and lifetime purchases for Ultra options. As far as I’m aware, Sync is also one of the only major Lemmy apps that has introduced ads/pay to remove ads option. You’ve brought subscriptions and money into a platform that is now home to an exodus of users that hated how those things were slowly destroying Reddit. It just doesn’t sit right with me.
I’ve signed up for a year out of a show as support for you. The best thing you could do is show your long-term support for this platform by encouraging growth and fair options for users rather than creating multi-tiered pay walls with questionably high prices.
Well as far as I am aware, not much if any of the ad and pricing policies have changed from Sync for Reddit, so it does not make much sense to be all the sudden surprised that Sync for Lemmy continues to be ad-supported. Sync for Lemmy is basically just a faithful port of Sync for Reddit with as few changes as necessary, which AFAIK is exactly what everyone asked for.
ad and pricing policies have changed from Sync for Reddit
The ad-free version of Sync for Reddit (Pro) was around £2 to £5, depending on when you bought it.
There was also a fairly priced lifetime cost for Ultra (around £25). The pricing policy you’re referring to is vastly different from what’s on offer right now. I’m not sure how you’re managing to even compare them.
If lemmy is just for Foss crusaders it has no future
There’s a huge difference between wanting something for free and wanting something fairly priced.
I never said I wanted it for free. I’ve even paid for a year of Ultra to show some support towards the dev. But I still think the lifetime and regional pricing needs to be adjusted.
Why are you getting mad? The economy of scale is simply not there yet because there is only a handful of us lemmy users right now. With 100,000 active monthly users, even if 1% of them bought a subscription at $17/year, it’ll still going to net the dev ~$12,000 per year (after 30% google play fee) which is actually below US minimum wage. As lemmy got more and more users, I’m sure the dev would revise the pricing. If he were greedy he would just quit and work at some big corp instead of working full time on a lemmy client for peanuts.
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This post lead to me to send 20 USD to the Jerboa/Lemmy devs.
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Have you considered people are mad because:
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Same purchase was a lot cheaper when it was Reddit.
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Reddit already ran ads, so having an app who ran ads of its own was fine.
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Monoteizing a FOSS project in a way that doesn’t help the maintainers of that project may not be seen as ethical.
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Having a subscription for features that don’t cost anything to serve (highlighting users can be done locally for instance) might feel like an artificial limitation to drive sales.
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The fact that it launched with both a transaction (not a small one, as it costs more than any non-professional app I bought) and a subscription service in literally the first beta of the app.
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Combination of these with all the alternatives being all-free (both in price and as in freedom) might make people think few times before paying for this app.
Personally, I really dislike the price, find subscription meh but I absolutely adore Sync’s UX. But honestly, without few things changing, I don’t see myself recommending Sync to friends.
My thoughts about your first few points:
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I, and many others it seems, think the Sync for Reddit app was priced almost too low. Only a few dollars for an app isn’t sustainable for the dev in the long run. I believe people using reddit sync with ads actually supported the dev more than people buying the app.
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The reddit API was free, so it technically didn’t have ads if you used some ad-free (FOSS) 3rd party app. Sync for lemmy isn’t any different in that sense.
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Sure, the lemmy devs and instances also need money to run the service. People are free to and should donate to them as well. Sync for lemmy, however, isn’t costing instances any more than FOSS apps.
The rest of your points are just personal preference, really. If you like the app, buy it or use it with ads. If you don’t like the app, use something else. Honestly surprised by how much hate an app no one is forcing people to use is getting.
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Well said and reasoned. The vitriol above however, not so much. [Edit] Spelling.
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Happy to hear that, these devs need to eat too right
They need to earn more than the dev of sync who don’t split the revenue with the Lemmy dev and the instances. The split of the revenues is fair for everyone. Lemmy devs, instances and Sync dev receive something for their work.
He is literally making money on the back of the people donating. Without these donator his business doesn’t make any sense and wouldn’t exist.
I am pretty sure some of his revenue goes to lemmy and instances because it isn’t a full free app
I hope the dev donates a fair share…
“Adding” ads to a FOSS service is pretty sinister especially if it only cost $3.99/year to remove them from the Sync for Reddit app.
Lemmy could use some white hat bug hunters to find security vulnerabilities before malicious actors do, like Mozilla helping patch Mastodon’s TootRoot.
Reddit had considerably more users when Sync was created- so smaller amount per person over larger user base would pay for the bill.
With Lemmy, user base isn’t there yet to create that same economies of scale - so to pay for the dev’s time - each person would need to pay a larger amount.
80% of the app is the same. It’s not like he spent years creating a new app from scratch. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve compensation but I feel like he’s being a bit gougey in this situation.
@1ird @chargingtriceratops Regional pricing hasn’t been set up yet, but he plans to make a single time purchase option in the future, and set up Regional pricing
Here’s hoping it all shakes out in the end.
I’m pretty sure he had to rewrite all of the code related to network and the API, and that’s not little work. Thats weeks worth of work including testing
I mean that’s literally how business works - amount needed to be profitable / number of customers = base price.
Reddit had millions of users, lower price per person.
Not to mention the literally free version!
You can’t compare Reddit and Lemmy. They are different with a different model. Lemmy rely on donation. Reddit has ads and investors.
The dev of Sync did money with Reddit but Reddit had a source of revenue.
Lemmy relying on donation doesn’t have this source of revenue. This is why splitting the revenue of Sync between Lemmy’s devs, instances and Sync’s dev is fair.
If someone donate to the Lemmy’s devs and/or instances, this person allows the sync’s dev to make money on this donation. This isn’t fair.
The sync model with Lemmy is predatory at best and parasitic at least.
No one is adding ads to Lemmy. Sync only puts ads in itself. It’s pedantic but it’s important to get it right.
Based
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Honestly I think we all need to relax. Lemmy is a niche app that’s rising, and it’s one guy. I paid for ultra since it was cheaper than the pay for no ads option.
$29AUD or whatever it was per year for ultra is literally paying a dev once a year for their work, and to keep it updated and build features.
The outrage is really ridiculous considering how quickly the app was built, how decent the experience is and the realities of the real world right now.
Pay the cash, you’re not going to remember it by the time you’re paid next. For the job you did, producing something. Like this guy did.
