Afternoon everyone,
I wanted to go over a few points related to pricing, stats and the roadmap
Pricing
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Sync for Lemmy is completely free with ads (the same as Sync for Reddit)
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You can remove ads in the account picker or drawer for a one time fee of ~$20
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Sync Ultra also removes ads but it’s not required
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I’ll be working on regional prices over the coming weeks
There are now 24k installed users up from 100 the previous day!
I’m going to be spending the next few days going through all of the comments / messages and fixing any crashes.
As always thanks for the support and hope you’re liking Sync!
Lj
Edit: testing edit
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I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the backslash you’re getting for charging money.
I’m also sorry people expect it to be $1 because the Reddit app was $1 back in 1825. I genuinely believe it’s children complaining, because no functioning adult would complain about a price increase when rent has tripled or quadrupled since the $1 Reddit app. It’s also annoying to see that people think that saying they bought the Reddit app for $1 and enjoyed it for 10 years is an argument. It goes to show it was severely underpriced.
It must be frustrating to have that type of response. Lemmy users seem to be really entitled when it comes to software, and the response you’re getting scares me for the future. I really hope the Boost developer doesn’t cancel his app after seeing how entitled Lemmy users are being right now.
What frustrates me more is the people complaining are continuing to use the free open source apps. Like great, you already have an alternative you prefer. Shut up. Stop bringing others down.
I wish you the best. Thank you for choosing to develop for Lemmy. I have my eyes on Boost, but I’m gladly using your free tier for the time being.
Thanks again!
I paid 5 dollars back in 2016, and I was fully expecting to pay more for this version. 20 dollars for no ads is fine by me. However, I don’t feel like the 100 dollars for lifetime ultra is worth it. Maybe someday when I feel like those extra perks are worthwhile
I think his only mistake was offering lifetime at all. Nobody knows the future of Lemmy; people are seeing $100 and getting a bit of a shock, we could buy two AAA games for that. A couple of dollars a month or annual is easier to justify. Then, if Lemmy does become the next big thing and lasts 20 years, the developer is taking a big hit. Lifetime at that price feels like there will be a loser for either the user or dev.
I think that the possibility for Lemmy being around for the next 20 years is a compelling argument for pricing the lifetime version that high.
The dev needs recurring money to support himself, and having a ton of users not paying at all after a certain amount of time would only hurt him in the future.
I agree that it’d be better to stomach if there was a cheaper recurring monthly/yearly fee for it (in case it doesn’t exist right now).
I paid like 80 bucks about a year ago. And here I am rallying for ljd to keep providing a solid client that works the way I want it to.
I followed like sheep, and baaaah take my money.
What bothers me with this controversy is that it’s not clear for me how one can earn a living in the lemmy ecosystem if everything is FOSS. Also, one should understand that the app is in beta, but there was so much hype around that app.
What is unclear? If someone makes an app that improves the user experience and they charge for it, then that’s exactly how?
Lemmy is still FOSS, doesn’t mean everything that interacts with it has to be.
That’s not what the majority of people bitching that Sync is bad simply because it’s not FOSS would have you believe.
The controversy is just silly to me. I didn’t hesitate for a second to pay for the app. I’ve spent literally thousands of hours using Sync for reddit. $20 is nothing for that.
FOSS is great and all. But the attitude that everything should just be free no matter what is exactly why the internet turned into the data mining ad supported hellhole it is today. I am very willing to pay for things I spend time using. I honestly don’t understand thinking any other way.
I’ve spent literally thousands of hours using Sync for reddit.
Same here. I’ll probably end up buying Ultra Lifetime. Even if I don’t end up using Sync for Lemmy for the same number of hours as Sync for Reddit (lol I probably will), it still seems fair considering the thousands of hours I got out of Sync for Reddit for ~$5 CAD. And if I only use it for 100 hours, it still costs less per hour than a parking meter around here. Frankly, I wish I had the option to pay the ads away for every app I use regularly.
It’s like any of my hobbies. Will three skeins of nice yarn run me $80-100? Sure. Will I get 80-100 hours of enjoyment out of knitting with it? Absolutely. $1/hour seems like a decent deal, not to mention the years of wear I get out of the finished product.
I love FOSS, but there’s also a place in the world for paid software. Ljdawson knit us a very cozy, warm Sync sweater and I’m happy to pay him for his work.
I’m fine with a price increase, but 4 times the price is quite the increase. Haven’t made up my mind if it’s worth it for me yet, if it was 5€ or maybe 10€ I would have immediately bought it.
The userbase is also like 100x smaller yet it takes the same amount of upkeep as a developer. Of course he is going to charge more and that is fair enough imo.
Ultimately if you don’t like it, don’t pay it.
I sure as hell like the app, but the issue of lemmy user base being smaller goes both ways unfortunately. I mean it makes sense for him to ask for more money to make up for it, but also at the same time it’s less worth it because Lemmy’s communities aren’t nearly as active as their reddit counterparts. I’ll probably use the app for a couple months and then pay to remove ads if I end up using it enough for the ads to annoy me.
Yeah and I think that’s a fair take. I think most people are probably in a similar boat. I’m not willing to commit much money to Lemmy because it’s such a new and untested platform so we will see.
For me so far I’ve yet to see a single advert on Sync anyway so I’m not exactly sure where they are supposed to be in the first place.
Agreed, $10 would’ve been an insta buy.
At $20 I guess maybe I’ll get it once v1.0 comes out, we’ll see.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Under AUD$2 to AUD$34 is quite the leap, and more than double what I anticipated.
I was very happy to drop AUD$10-15, and I’m aware that what I paid in 20 dickity 13 was a steal.
Quadrupled app costs would have been a bargain in my eyes.
Don’t worry, it’s a yearly subscription, not a one time purchase.
The people complaining about the price are the people that truly have no understanding how much love and care goes into creating good software. 20 dollars to remove ads for however many hours sync is going to save me with searching for each instance is well worth the cost for supporting development in the future.
People aren’t allowed to have opinions unless they’re positive?
You should learn the difference between an opinion and attacking/bullying.
You’re allowed to have an opinion.
And he’s also allowed to share his opinion about people who have negative opinions
Nah, bootlickers are the ones allowed around here.
they bought the Reddit app for $1 and enjoyed it for 10 years is an argument
Can you share a link for the $1 comment. I am not aware of reddit sync being $1.
👆
LJ,
I too am a reddit refugee. I like what you’ve done with this place.
:)
But we have to talk about pricing and privacy.
Pricing: tbh I see not much wrong with the 20 bucks. But I do think that you should take 2 bucks from that and donate one to the lemmy org (this is not reddit, nobody is getting paid, the lemmy devs also need an incentive) and the other one to lemmy.world because that’s the instance you’re dumping us all on. Hosting is not free, lemmy.world costs money and probably a lot of time to run. Being a reddit admin is a payed job, being Ruud at lemmy.world most certainly is not.
In this way “we” are giving back to the Foss community and it should silence a lot of critics. In that way you don’t look like the evil capitalist earning a quick buck over the back of free labour of the foss community. I think that’s 2 bucks well spent.
Edit: same goes for ultra subscriptions of course, a similar percentage should be fed back to the lemmy org and lemmy.world.
Privacy: since you’re using admob and I forgot the other one, privacy is out the window. That’s a big issue for the Foss community we’re all relying on. Maybe it’s wise to point out that once you pay for sync all that tracking that admob and the other one (not you I hope) does is out the window.
Edit edit: maybe you could also add a yearly reminder to donate to the users favourite lemmy instance.
I’ll repeat what I said in some other thread:
I loved the old app, I still love the new app, it’s a pleasure to use compared to the alternatives I’ve tried, and I find the ultra subscription rate both reasonable and worthwhile to support a product I truly enjoy.
Sync is good for me. There’s plenty of other options if it’s not good for you.
Please keep up the good work!
I just want to say thank you for getting Sync up and running on Lemmy. Please don’t let the toxic comments sour your day. I for one is really grateful for what you do.
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Whether the pricing is appropriate is purely subjective. I paid the 20 bucks, thank you for your work. Looking forward to see this app thrive, it already works super smooth!
Hope you do not take the inevitably rude comments to heart.
Initially, I didn’t have a problem with it, but I read some good points in other threads that it is far too expensive for those in undeveloped countries, and that there should be a sliding scale instead of a straight-up currency conversion.
Yup as mentioned I’ll be setting these by region over time. But it involves me individually tailoring the price to each country usually comparing it to some metric like the cost of a take away.
You could use the Big Mac Index. Yeah, that’s a thing.
That or purchasing power parity would be a great basis for the pricing tbh
Steam has recommended regional pricing for Steam games, maybe that could be used as a guide?
I’m seriously impressed with how functional this app is from the start. Like lots of others have said, it felt like coming home given how long I’d used Sync for. Didn’t hesitate to pay for the ad free version once that option was added.
It’s almost kinda creepy how much it feels just like the other place
It seemed like the old config backups from reddit sync were conpatible so it literally was like it was before. Awesome!
Something that amazed me is how I can scroll as fast as I want on Sync and it never has to wait to load new posts. I tried scrolling as fast as I humanly could and the posts just loaded…
It’s so fast compared to Reddit, really satisfying
Yeah I stumbled upon this cause relay is kinda meh, sign up was like ah crap what’s all this server nonsense but the app does a great job of streamlining it I was surprised! Quiter so far but has some of the communities I like in the other place without thousands of comments
I’m all on board with FOSS, but I used sync for reddit for years, ljdawson has my support on Lemmy too. I don’t mind supporting a good dev. Do I prefer things be FOSS? Yeah, but I have no issues using a closed source product if it works. And sync has always been top notch. Responsive dev, all around good product.
The dev is also in England where the cost of living is skyrocketing. For me $20/yr for a staple app on my phone that’s constantly being updated is totally reasonable.
I’m with you, I just wish pro was a separate app because I hate all the data collection garbage.
The backlash has surprised me a bit. I agree the price is a bit steep but considering the userbase is only a fraction of what Reddit has, it’s understandable that the price would be higher.
I just didn’t expect such negative reactions to either the ad component or the price. A lot have mentioned that it could become a form of gatekeeping for newcomers. I just hope it won’t turn out that way.
$5 for the 8 years I used Sync for Reddit is cheap as fuck looking back. $20 is totally fair if I use this app even half as long.
Seriously. I got absolutely massive return for my money on Reddit sync. As a long time user, I’m absolutely thrilled to pay $30 for such a great experience. Nothing else I’ve paid for even comes close. This is cheap AF! I’m not a big fan of subscriptions but I’d consider getting the Sync subscription just to keep supporting ljdawson.
I paid $30 for a launcher (Niagara). It was worth it. I’ll give Sync a few days and will probably end up throwing down some cash. Seems solid so far.
Niagara costs like six bucks to buy?
Niagara Pro is $10 per year or $30 one time.
A part from the comments on the images, I think there is a bug with alignment because the first comment has 3 lines instead of one as you can see from this image
Working on a fix for this.
I suspect it’s sometimes because a mod removes the comment, I may be wrong.
It was actually an issue with how I processed comments.
All fixed now though!
deleted by creator
Hopping on to the “I feel at home” train! One thing that really bugged me about the alternatives was that they weren’t as smooth and fluid. Like I scroll down and it jumps, I scroll up, it jitters etc.
Sync is the UI and the UX I’ve missed!
Not to wake sleeping dogs or anything, but uh I don’t see any ads. Where are those ads supposed to be?
Like the kid asking if there’s any homework tonight 😆
I mean, yeah fair. I also don’t look forward to dropping 20 bucks to remove them when they inevitably come. Though I will say if the price was more like 5-10 bucks I wouldn’t even ask the question because I would have paid that sight unseen.
$20 for a perpetual ad-free license to a fully featured app is asking too much?
App devs must have the thickest skin alive to live with their user base
Especially with a user base like Lemmy’s
20$ is not expensive, but some people on a very tight budget can’t afford it. It’s that simple. But no problem, I’ll keep up with ads until I can.
For real lol, the kinda of people if you checked would have loads of hours clocked in the app too
What view are you using? I see the empty “Sponsored Content” boxes on the slides view, but nothing on small cards (my preferred setting).
List view master race here, and you’re right, I see an empty ad in default view. So it’s probably an oversight and it’s just not integrated into the list view yet.So uh /u/ljdawson, how about a 50% coupon for this hot bug report 😅
Afaik it’s in beta so maybe the dev will enable it once it’s v.1.0?
Are you using a ad blocking dns service?
Cool, bumpy start but I support your work, you will be instrumental in growing Lemmy. GDPR issues needs to be fixed pronto as it otherwise won’t legally comply in the EU.
I’ve got a bug fix thread here
Keep it up!
A few things I want to say:
- Congrats for the successful launch! I hope this project continues to improve.
- The ads aren’t very intrusive, they’re just banners in-between some posts and I’m fine with that.
- This app makes using Lemmy more attractive than using Reddit, which means that the goal of moving me far away from Reddit has been accomplished!
Amazing job so far. Here’s to the future of decentralized social media!
It’s the best app but the pricing is insane. I mean, maybe you have experience from your other apps and you know this is the optimal price, but otherwise, consider changing it. People are surprised by the high price right now.
If it was me, I would price it like this:
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Remove ads - $10 lifetime.
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Ultra - $3 per month, $20 per year, $50 lifetime.
Those sums are realistic and people are likely to find them acceptable. You would get more users instead of less users paying more.
But this is just me and I speak only as someone who never had an app in a appstore. Maybe you know better. But that’s what I would do.
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I’ll say it again: you are a legend.
