Holy shit y’all. Developers need to eat too. It’s totally fine to charge for an app or serve ads. LjDawson is a fantastic developer and really listens to his user base. Yes there are plenty of open source apps to use, but sometimes closed source is way more polished because the developer makes it their job to create the app. Living isn’t free. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Free as in freedom. Not free beer.
You lost this fight decades ago
Maybe a one time payment like for original sync, imagine supporting subscription services for a FOSS app 🤡🤡🤡
Lemmy is funded by Patreon/Liberapay… Which are essentially subscriptions
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their default model isnt based on ads like sync for lemmy
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a third party client isnt as much work as the fediverse as u see it took him a month
3)ads used to be a one time payment for his old app, so the money was enough for him back then and now hes even richer so why do you excuse his greediness?
It took him a month because he adapted a code base he had been working on for a decade.
It’s not greediness to want to be able to pay your bills. This is his job. Also a single payment option has already been developed it’s just not made in live yet.
He was already paying his bills with the one time payment and now hes even richer, this is the definition of greediness. Also his future plans are irrelevant here I am judging his current actions and the OP comment defending them.
PS, weird how the no ads feature takes longer to develop than the recurring payment with 10 features, INCLUDING the no ads one!
One-time payment is already implemented. Update in the Play Store if you cannot see it. The “Remove Ads” button is below the settings.
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Perhaps when you create your own app you can determine your own cost model.
“Dont judge politicians unless youre one of them” nice mindset bro
politicians are meant to be judged devs are meant to be criticized just for improvement, you can just use another app
Sure? I only criticized ill stick to liftoff since theres only subscription option
he has literally said he will add an one time payment
current comments defend his current actions so no opinion on that until it happens.
PS: weird how the no ads option takes more time to develop than the subscription option with 10x features, INCLUDING the no ads one !
It is already implemented in the newest update
Holy shit y’all. Developers need to eat too. It’s totally fine to charge for an app or serve ads.
You might be forgetting that these same developers refused to simply put in a subscription to their reddit apps to continue them, instead closing their apps and telling everyone to move to lemmy because that’s where their app will be…and now adding huge subscription fees and one-off fees on a platform that doesn’t charge them to use their API lol.
Maybe I’m just cynical but this really seems like the dollar signs lit up in the reddit app devs eyes the second reddits API changes got announced.
Okay let’s do the math. According to here there is expected to be about 55.79 million folks using reddit daily. Let’s say a good 5 million folks use Sync. Now, reddit said it would charge $0.24 per 1000 API calls. You can find that here. Now 1000 calls isn’t much at all really. Let’s say those 5 million folks just 1000 API calls a day ( they wont’ actually use ONLY 1000 ). So we have 1000 * 5,000,000 * 0.24 = $1,200,000,000. That’s per day. Does that seem sustainable to you? Like if folks were using MUCH MUCH less I could see your point. But the fact is…they weren’t and reddit were being assholes about it. Now compare that to what he’s charging. $17 bucks for a year. Let’s break that down and compare it to what he’d be paying per day. Say all 5 million users were paying for Ultra. That’s 5,000,000 * 17 = $85,000,000. Divide that by 12 to get per month. 85,000,000/12 = $7,083,333 per month. Divide by 30 for average revenue per day. $7,083,333/30 = $236,111. Now tell me that even comes close to $1,200,000,000. Your logic is flawed. This doesn’t even account for fees and possible server costs.
Let’s say those 5 million folks just 1000 API calls a day ( they wont’ actually use ONLY 1000 ).
Correct - 99% of those people will use nowhere near 1000 API calls a day. Each persons subscription only has to cover the costs of their API usage.
A $5/month subscription, at $0.24/1000 api calls, gives each user just under 21,000 API calls per month. Most people aren’t going to be doing anywhere close to that.
This doesn’t even account for fees and possible server costs.
Sync doesn’t need any server costs. It’s not hosting an instance of Lemmy.
Also your maths is off by 1000x lol. The cost would be 1.2mil a day, not 1.2bil a day. You’re multiplying by 1000 for some reason, when the $0.24 already gets you 1000 api calls. So if all 5 million used 1000 calls per day, that’s 5 million x $0.24, which is $1.2mil.
They would actually use much more. See [here] ( https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/141mjij/lets_talk_about_those_api_calls/). Basically almost everything is an API request. Just loading a post and doing very little you have close to 33 requests. Even if my math was wrong it’s still way too much to pay for per day. Especially if folks are using much more that 1000 API calls per day.
Just loading a post and doing very little you have close to 33 requests.
No you don’t. You can open Reddit and open a post with ~3:
1 for getting the posts on your front page
1 for checking your messages.
1 for getting the comments on a post.
Where are you getting “close to 33 requests from”? That post that says they’ve done “very little” and used 33 calls? Ah yes, because everyone “checks who the mods are +1” every time they log in to reddit. Every single user is a mod who checks their modmail (+1).
BTW I know how API’s work, I’m a web developer. Most people will not go anywhere close to using 1000 API calls a day.
Okay so say I believe you. Why do you think a large majority of third party devs shuttered their projects they worked on for so long if it was just as easy as adding a subscription fee? Why didn’t more of them do it? I know of one that actually implemented a subscription. If folks were actually doing much less than 1000 API calls daily then you’d think most devs would have gone that way right?
Someone reply to my comment so I can see what sync does!
Now I am excited to hear what sync does ;)
So far it’s a seamless transition, glad iamthatis decided to release it. I feel like many users have less of a barrier to entry now.
I guess you are talking about ljdawson. Iamthatis is the dev of Apollo :)
I am testing it out now. It seems really good.
it has ads.
and you can’t post.
but otherwise I agree.
weird, I haven’t seen any ads yet
Interesting! Here’s what it looks like for me:
I had the Reddit Sync Pro lifetime thing so I just kind of figured it was because of that, but I straight up haven’t seen a single ad. It’s not like I have an ad blocker on or anything. How weird!
Sync for Reddit and Sync for Lemmy are separate, so the license and all don’t transfer. You’ll see ads sooner or later if you didn’t do anything to block it.
I can’t post?
i couldn’t post.
ITT, bunch of people who have never used Sync for Reddit whining about Sync Ultra and the app having ads. 🤦🏻♂️
I used sync for reddit for a decade. No way in hell I’m paying $20 for the ad-free upgrade. Explain how lemmy which is months old and a minute fraction of the size of reddit, should cost me more to browse ad-free than reddit? It’s mind boggling that we’re in the age where asking $20 for a 3rd party social media app is being defended as reasonable.
Uhm, then don’t pay? No one is forcing you to pay or even use Sync. I don’t think it’s worth it for me too at this moment to pay that much for an app to browse Lemmy (because in my opinion it’s still riding the hype train, it’s long term future is still to be determined). So I accept that I will have to see ads.
Sync is an app by a private developer, who has his own rights to set the price for something he produced. He can put the price at 100€ and still no one has the right to whine about it. If you think it’s not worth it, then don’t buy it. It’s not like you need this to survive.
It’s not about the app. It has nothing to do with the app itself to be fair. It’s the fact to have ads. Ads aren’t the spirit and the philosophy of Lemmy.
People are fine to pay for the app. Money isn’t the issue either. The dev should not assume Lemmy is a new Reddit. It’s different with different spirit and philosophy. This point has to be taken in consideration.
That’s the beauty of have a multitude of different apps. You choose the one that feels right for you. Much like how you can choose another Lemmy instance.
Yes, sure, you can choose whatever you want. It doesn’t make my opinion wrong. It’s not in the philosophy of the fediverse. People can use it with an ads tracked app of they want. I respect it.
It’s a hard no for me and I will express it. It could be a hard yes if they will be a one time payment version without free ads base one.
an opinion cannot be wrong. but it also cannot be right. you make a fair point with what you’re saying. the dev is already planning on a single time purchase, but a sub option is definitely not “morally wrong.”
It can be morally wrong depending on the person’s visions. It’s not that this vision is wrong or right. It’s a personal one. Nobody did this vision mandatory.
Although I do not agree with your opinion above, but I think your opinion is valid and you don’t deserve the downvotes.
My opinion is that Sync and Lemmy are two different things with two different philosophies. Yes they are interconnected, but they are both separate entities, and it’s not like Sync is built off of Lemmy’s source code. The dev should get compensated for the time and resources he put into the source code of Sync, and if ads is a way to contribute to that, then so be it.
Interested in the lifetime membership but its so damn expensive!! Would wait to see how Boost is before deciding on which app I would be staying in.
Yeah, gotta kind of see if Lemmy catches on before investing that kind of money. I’d be much more likely to toss them $20 or something more reasonable
It does feel nice feeling home again after years of using Sync though. That official Reddit app is so clumsy.
$20 is what it takes to remove ads. Ultra is another subscription with different benefits altogether.
Long time Sync user and Ultra (lifetime).
Now I am really disappointed the lifetime membership isn’t transferable to Lemmy. Nothing. Not even a discount, a note, nothing.
How much did lifetime Ultra cost for the Reddit app, by the way?
For me it was $2.50. Paid on Aug 27, 2015.
That’s pro. Ultra is something else entirely.
Contains ads
ಠ_ಠ
That was the case with the original Sync, no surprise here.
Although there was the option to purchase Pro as a one-time fee. This one unfortunately only has a subscription option (which I’m not too keen on).
Edit: ljdawson has confirmed there will be an one-time payment options for both Ultra and ad removal!
Afaik a one-time-purchase to get rid of the ads is planned.
Lol! The choice is ads or a SUBSCRIPTION!?
My friend, we know other 3rd party Reddit app developers are working as fast as they can to make lemmy apps. One of them is bound to have a one-time pro version upgrade. I’ll hold out for that.
LMAO … Subscriptions. Why on earth do you think we left Reddit?!
I left Reddit because Spez is an asshole and he killed third-party API access (which, btw, impacted more than just clients - many useful bots/scripts died too as a result of this change).
For many of us, Sync was Reddit, and killing Sync basically killed Reddit for us, but now that Sync is back (for Lemmy), many of us are more than happy to pay a subscription to support the dev, instead of supporting Reddit. ljdawson is an awesome developer who actually listens to his users and updates his apps regularly. If you don’t want to support him and/or use a different app, that’s your call of course, but for fans of Sync, it’s like coming back home after a long time and getting that feeling of “there’s no place like home”.
The issue people have with Sync is the model going against the philosophy of Lemmy and the fediverse.
People aren’t mad at paying for the app if it was a one time payment.
I left reddit because of asshole decisions. I think 18 Euro per year is pretty fair for an app you probably use every day. I prefer one time payment over subscription, too. But the price for sync is nothing to rant about imo.
Ads or subscription.
Yeah, I’ll stick with Thunder. Having used Lemmy and Mastodon, I realised how much I hate ads.
One time purchase coming soon, its still in beta after all
Maybe, the dev should have wait until he can release it as a one time payment without free version. You want Sync, you pay. Nobody will be against it.
Yup that is a real rough pill to swallow when the default is free AND no ads. If I’m going to drop money on lemmy I’d rather just donate to whoever is hosting my instance.
I hear what you (and everyone else) is saying, but the developer needs to make money somehow or they’ll have to go get a regular job, and then who will develop?
I think what I’m saying is, how else is the Dev meant to feed his face?
I miss the days when I could just drop a couple of dollars on the paid version, stops the ads and works forever, subscriptions turn me off.
He can release it as a one time payment without free version.
I tried multiple Reddit apps before I settled on Sync. I went through a phase of trying a different one every week. They were all free versions with a paid version. I paid for the ones I liked.
That’s all I wanna do, buy it once, no subscription.
It wasn’t the case of Sync at the beginning. It was just a paid version. The free ad based version came later.
Look at how people are reacting to paying for a subscription. If he had no free version people would NOT try it.
And, I’m not the dev of it. He needs to convince the people. Here, he has multiple possibilities that he can explore before finding how to attract users.
Not interested in something that supports ads or subscriptions. It definitely doesn’t fit the ethos or average desires of most lemmy users from what I understand.
The free and open source applications for lemmy are working out for me, so I really have no need for something like this that goes against what I believe lemmy stands for
Sometimes you have to pay for keeping things free, if that makes any sense.
FOSS can’t exist in a vacuum. The developers spend a lot of time on things and they need to be paid for their efforts, otherwise we won’t get great products like Sync.
If you want things that are well maintained and supported, then there has to be income for those owners to provide those services.
Sync for lemmy is a top tier client. I’m willing to pay to get and support that model. It’s not like the 17 dollars a year is a big deal. I spend more than that on a single sushi roll sometimes.
You can donate to keep the quality. I agree the ads based system is against the spirit and philosophy of Lemmy. Lemmy isn’t a reddit and this is where the dev of sync did a mistake.
Donating isn’t the only possibility. The dev could make the app a one time payment (I know he said it will come) without free version. If people want to use Sync, they have to pay for it. It’s for the job and hours behind it.
