I paid €2.51 to remove ads on Sync for Reddit. I would have spent maybe a tenner but it's over €20 for the Lemmy app. As much as I love Sync, that's a big nope from me.
Remember, Lemmy has a lot less active users than Reddit. Even if ALL active Lemmy users on Lemmy.world buy the app at its original $2 price, it's still not enough to sustain full time development. Both higher one time purchase price and subscription is needed for the app's survival, even then I'm still not sure if it's enough for the dev to sustain themselves. I'm getting the ultra subscription for this reason because I don't want the app to go away, and I encourage people that really like the app to do so as well.
Monthly active users aren't counted the same. Lemmy only counts people who post or comment. Still a big difference, but 60,000 is not the entire userbase of Lemmy.
No, we're paying to remove ads. And $26 CDN to remove ads feels really high when I paid $3.69 to remove ads in Boost and $4.49 to remove ads in Relay in 2019.
I like how you bothered to speak of supporting the dev yet mentioned how to stop ads with a VPN based blocker.
Yes it is steep for me in Quebec with taxes it is 31 $ . But I had the option to use 20$ in google play credits from Google rewards. 11$ is an ok deal. Remember that sync is the first Lemmy app from former Reddit devs and that the developer worked really hard to release it.
I am aware of the scenario. Sync for Lemmy is not just relaunching into a fresh world here. The dev shouldn't come in with unreasonable pricing. Not when we can use very nice apps such as Connect instead for free, and ad free.
Paying to remove ads is supporting the dev. This is doubly true when you can get no ads without paying (though sync will still have blank spots where the ads were supposed to go).
Sure, but if you're someone who wants sync specifically (say, if you used it for reddit), then you need to support it if you want it to stay in development.
It’s just really weird to pay twenty dollars to not have ads on a platform that doesn’t inherently have ads - a platform that has been purposefully designed to avoid the needs for ads or the trappings of capitalism. To voluntarily reinfect yourself into that ecosystem seems at best weird, and at worst sort of a violation of what the fediverse is about.
I understand the sentiment. Most devs that release Lemmy apps do so as a side projects. They don't make money doing it. In fact, they actually losing money and time to work on their side projects. It's actually amazing how many apps we now have in just a short time.
That being said, Sync developer is one of a few dev who work on a lemmy app full time. This results in higher quality app, even though it's still in beta right now. But since he's literally doing this for a living, he'll need to make some money to continue his work. People was begging for him to make an app for Lemmy, and he actually does it. Whether he'll continue doing this or not will depends on whether he can make a living or not. And since the market for Lemmy apps is so small, there is no other choice but to charge a higher price to make the calculus works. For a lot of people that rooting for him, paying $20 or $17/year is no brainer if it means they get to have their favorite app working on Lemmy.
If there’s no other choice why is it the only app making that choice? I also don’t think that proprietary closed, profit incentivized systems are inherently better. The kbin PWA app is beyond sufficient.
I'm not saying there is no other choice. Lemmy core devs are paid by a grant to work on Lemmy full time for example. Other apps developers may have a different funding model (donation, or even out of their own pocket), but for Sync, the dev is a commercial app developer so he does what he do best: making a paid app.
The thing that set Sync and Apollo apart from a horde of other 3rd party reddit client apps was due to both dev was working full time on their app, and the quality of those apps prove it. The sync dev has been working full time on lemmy app in the past few weeks, and we can already see how good the app is compared o other lemmy apps.
If Apollo dev were also making a lemmy app, the price would be more or less the same simply due to small lemmy user base. The economy of scale simply is not there yet. The only way those devs can lower the price and still be able to sustain themselves is if lemmy gain a whole lot more total active users.
This platform needs money to keep going. If donations do not cover expenses, it will either find funding or just close. So, it may end up using "trappings of capitalism".
Last thread was complaints of not wanting subscriptions this thread is complaints of too expensive 🤷. By all means keep the ads or use another app. Imo it's not super surprising to be pricey when it's a one time purchase instead of the subscription.
God forbid you pay $20 once to support the dev and for an app you'll use 1-2 hours a day for potentially the rest of your life...yet you'll pay $10 for a streaming service you'll never touch for months on end...
How is the amount of time you spend on a app a consideration for the price? Using Sync more doesn't cost the dev any more so not sure why they would be factored into it. It feels like you're conflating personal value with cost.
Quite the opposite. I already block ads, I want to support the developer. But I don't want a subscription nor do I want to pay a huge fee for one app. I use a lot of apps and it's not feasible to pay that much for each one.