• ffolkes@fanexus.com
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    1 year ago

    It’s live for me. It appears that the paid version, “Sync Ultra”, requires a $2/month subscription, or $17/year. Seeing as lemmy APIs are free, I am confused why this is so expensive? o_0

    • nealoverbay@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I mean it takes the developer time and effort to make the app, and he doesn’t benefit from any ad-revenue. It’s just paying for some nice features to support the work and effort of an awesome dev.

      • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Why come so many other excellent free apps but this one ads and money tho

        Also why need data?

        • can@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          A lot of the are Bibby enthusiast projects while sync continues the lineage of a well established app.

    • Quinten@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      To show some support!

      I mean, we’re already browsing ad free on here and many developers are making their apps in their free time. I get that this are expensive times, but if no-one would subscribe to such apps. There would be much less developers.

      • Izzy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        So how would you feel about Lemmy instance hosters adding ads, harvesting user data to sell to third partiess, making paid subscription models to remove said ads they added and then charging for API access?

        • Quinten@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          We spoke about it with Ruud on Discord actually. He’s fine with it. Most people understand that nothing comes for free.

          Actually, it is even a nice gesture from the developer. The ones who cannot afford it can still use the app, without paying for it.

          • Izzy@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’m not suggesting that they should or even can be forced to change or that lemmy.world admins actually do anything differently.

            It’s also not about the cost or not being able to afford it. It is about principles and and the ad driven business model being antithetical to the goals of Lemmy. Being federated is one thing, but it is also about moving away from ads. I am fully in support of nearly any monetization of software other than ads and selling user data.

            Personally I just can’t understand the person who would agree that Reddit was being egregiously corporate minded and greedy to the point that they move to Lemmy and then be ok with adding ads were there previously were none. I’m definitely not going to be using it and I don’t even care that much despite my comments here if other people do. I just want to make this point known. I don’t want Lemmy to become Reddit all over again and I felt there was a bit of an honor system in place to not do things like that and it has already been broken.

            Another point of contention with ads is that everyone is generating the content for free that Sync is injecting ads next to. I don’t want to help them make money off of something I do as a hobby even if it is only pennies. This is one of the main reasons I won’t use Reddit and have been favor of the federated internet.

    • MrQuallzin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m confused how $17 is considered expensive. If that was a monthly price it would be expensive. $17 for a year? Cheapest subscription I’ve ever paid for, and I’m happy to do it as a subscription to continually support the developer.

      • Sentau@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Well it is cheap for people living in developed countries but in developing countries where the exchange rate vs the dollar is high and the average income is lower, the cost of the subscription is substantial. Yes we should support the developer but unfortunately this subscription model is unfeasible for some people.

      • gareth886@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        While I hate subscription models, I actually paid the yearly subscription for this (fyi $27.99 in Australia.

        One of the main reasons I paid is because I used Sync for Reddit multiple times a day for years and wanted to support the developer. If the fedeverse fails to take off at scale I won’t renew for additional years.

        $28 is a small price to pay on my behalf to thank the developer for all his previous work, but also support further development. It’s high quality apps like this that help drive traffic to the excellent communities that are reestablishing themselves in the fedeverse.

    • Squids@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Idk what the plan is for Lemmy, but at least in the original Reddit version, ultra cost more because it also includes things like translation services that required third party server space

      There’s a simple ad-free version pending approval I think that I assume will probably just cost the usual dollar or five

    • ludwig@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It appears IAP are coming later and I assume they will just disable ads for 5€ or something. Just like the original app.

      • ffolkes@fanexus.com
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        1 year ago

        The option to remove ads has been added - it costs $20 USD. The lifetime Ultra costs $100 USD.

        • Cassie Sandwich@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Very obviously pushing people towards the subscription model - the sub prices stayed the same but the lifetime and ad removal both jumped up over three times the price. At that point why even have the lifetime options

          • ffolkes@fanexus.com
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            1 year ago

            $17/year to subscribe to Ultra, or $100/once. That means you’d have to subscribe yearly for almost 6 years to break even.

            • AllegedHoister@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I mean Sync for Reddit was my most used app for like 8+ years. If my Lemmy use has the same longevity then $100 for lifetime isn’t too bad of a deal.

          • sverit@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            For me it’s 7x the price, bought Sync Pro for reddit fur 2,99€ in 2018.

      • Will_Not_Grow_Up@lemmy.worldB
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        1 year ago

        These prices are for Ultra. Ultra is voluntary and only for super fans to support the developer. There will be a pro version that is a one time payment and it removes all the ads and is very affordable. But the developer didn’t want to start charging for the Pro version while bugs still exist and is waiting for the Beta to be over.

      • Izzy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I completely agree with someone trying to make some money off of their app, but when it comes to Lemmy I can’t agree with injecting ads just so people have to pay to remove them. If it were just about the added bonus features then it would be a lot more acceptable.

        Lemmy doesn’t have ads and the instance hosters rely entirely on donations.

        I must say, this is pretty uncool of Sync for Lemmy developers.

        • tungah@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Moreover, it looks like it’s gathering user info to third parties like messages, device or other IDs? Hmm 🤔

          • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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            1 year ago

            Those are the ads SDK, which is disabled if you subscribe to ultra or pay a one time purchase to remove ads (available later when the app is out of beta).

          • Izzy@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            If true that is a real deal breaker for me. The whole idea of Lemmy is to break away from exploitative data gathering from corporations. If they are data gathering to sell to third parties then what makes them any different than Reddit? 🫤

            If I had to guess most of that info is just to feed you ads, but that is already bad enough for me.

            • tungah@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I think we can all make our own conclusions. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the app looks great. But I think the subscription model and the data gathering maybe isn’t the right approach in this instance, since we’re talking about a different culture in Lemmy. This is not Reddit. I’d be happy with a simple, straight app purchase with no bs data mining, thank you very much.

              • Neve8028@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Any paid tier (ultra or eventually pro when it comes out) will have all the data gathering disabled. It’s purely just for whatever framework sync is using to serve ads.

            • mannycalavera@feddit.uk
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              1 year ago

              LOL this is not how you gather data in a mobile app. There isn’t a GATHER_USER_DATA permission 🤣🤣🤣

              • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Ok then, how do you think it’s getting the user’s location data without access to the location permission, wifi, or Bluetooth?

      • ffolkes@fanexus.com
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        1 year ago

        It is indeed beautifully designed. By far the best looking client I’ve seen yet.

    • justhach@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Bruh, you can’t spare two whole dollars for something you’re going to be using every day? Like, I use Jerboa, which is free, but I still signed up for dessalines patreon to support their work.

      The future is either free to use, but put up with ads, or pay a meager amount to support the developers so ads arent required to sustain the product.

      • sigh@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Bruh, you can’t spare two whole dollars for something you’re going to be using every day?

        Or, we can just like …buy it once…like most other software that isn’t tied to a first-party hosted service?

        The future is either free to use, but put up with ads, or pay a meager amount to support the developers so ads arent required to sustain the product.

        I’d like to unsubscribe from your vision of the future

        • Pringles@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          There will be an In-App Purchase later on. Keep in mind this is a beta and not the full release. For the beta the option is ads or ultra. For the full release it will be ads, pro (one time purchase) or ultra (subscription).

          • Sentau@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            Well games receive patch fixes and even content updates after release and most of them are pushed through to the people who purchased the game at no extra costs. Yes dlc’s do require you to purchase them but updates that fix bugs and improve performance resulting in an improved experience are usually free of cost

        • Will_Not_Grow_Up@lemmy.worldB
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          1 year ago

          These prices are for Ultra. Ultra is voluntary and only for super fans to support the developer. There will be a pro version that is a one time payment and it removes all the ads and is very affordable. But the developer didn’t want to start charging for the Pro version while bugs still exist and is waiting for the Beta to be over.

          • ffolkes@fanexus.com
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            1 year ago

            The option to remove ads has been added - it costs $20 USD. The lifetime Ultra costs $100 USD.

        • EtzBetz@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          I’m somewhat with you on this, but most software that’s updating its pricing or is new, is using a subscription model. 2$ really is fine I think, even less with the yearly thing. I’d still like to see a OTP