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With that price I feel like the dev has 0 faith in lemmy getting very big and feels like they need to capitalize on the currently few users to make back costs. I mean, not even an early access price considering its in beta still
Yeah this feels like early adopter tax. Get your money off people who don’t blink at stuff like $100 for a beta app for a small reddit that’s literally just a front end.
Then lower the price slowly. Like I feel like there are more Lemmy apps than Reddit ones. It’s pretty gauling to charge so much and essentially take everything from server owners by putting this up front for people trying it from Reddit.
Server owners aren’t the only people who are working for free.
There are people that have made skins for Lemmy, do they get paid? Mods as well, not to mention the Lemmy devs and admins. And all of this is nothing without people posting content, are you going to pay them too?
If all one has to do to try and diminish someone asking for a price for their services here is to point out someone else on Lemmy that wants the money too, then everyone looks like a jerk.
Don’t forget, the whole reason Lemmy is so successful these past few months is because the work these devs do wasn’t appreciated on Reddit, and we all came here instead. Are you saying all these redfugees should leave and take their money to X instead?
Server owners aren’t doing this for free. They are doing it at cost. Some of them quite a bit. I genuinely can’t see how you can sincerely equate someone paying thousands of dollars a month to host the infrastructure of Lemmy itself as someone designing a CSS theme in their free time for something that wouldn’t exist without the mentioned instance owners. These aren’t the same. And this is the first form of mainstream monetization to hit Lemmy at any level past donations and it’s aggressive. Childish reply. Someone posting content is not spending a dime but them posting that cost the server hosters one.
So then donate to your server. But denigrating other people on Lemmy for offering highly anticipated services is appalling. Ask for donations in a more appropriate place. My server was swimming in donations and told us to stop donating. Devs adding to the tapestry of options on Lemmy, whether foss or not, don’t deserve to be harassed because you think people’s money should go elsewhere.
He is doing this full time so its hes monthly income.
The literal opposite. I’m working on this fulltime and giving it everything I can.
And this is why I don’t mind the cost increase from old Sync.
I bought Sync Pro all the way back in 2014, and considering how long it’s been since then, plus the sub-2 month delivery time for Sync for Lemmy, I think you’ve more than earned an ultra sub from me!
Thanks for the hard work.
Hey I just want to say thanks for the app. Used sync regularly back when I used to browse Reddit and it must’ve been the most used app on my phone for years. Sync for Lemmy feels just as good I’ll probably switch to the iap for ad free but for now I took the yearly sub just to throw you some money.
Had been waiting for this since you announced it haha.
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$20 to remove ads on an app I’ll probably use daily seems to be fair price, from my perspective. But the subscription rubs me the wrong way.
“Userbase / 10 THOUSAND” is more like it.
Reddit has 1.6 billion monthly active users, and Lemmy had 62,000 in July.
Exactly. Suck the early adopter users dry just in case lemmy doesn’t get huge. I mean, yes there was dev time for this app, but of importing your syncreddit press into this app is any indication, it wasn’t a rewrite but merely an adaptation of API.
This is most definitely the dev seeing how much he can milk early on. Good for him if it works. I mean the app framework is amazing, don’t get me wrong. But not at these prices.
Not milking anything. I want to work on this long term
Okay, well, thanks but it’s too expensive for me. I want to support you but I can’t afford that. I would have paid up immediately if it was closer to the old costs, and have been really happy to do so. I’ve literally been waiting to do that.
God damn that’s expensive.
Yeah, this Dev seems to be counting on the idea that everyone in lemmy will forget that there are perfectly good free apps out there, and that all the other 3rd party Reddit devs are working on their own lemmy versions.
Been very happy with Connect.
Connect is my daily driver, too. But it feels very unpolished coming from Joey (for Reddit)
I think he’s actually counting on the fact that people will be using this app daily for the next decade, just like they did with Sync for reddit.
Imagine a city with 5 roads leading into it. A 6th road opens, and the builder puts up a toll booth, charging a high amount. Meanwhile 5 additional roads are currently being built leading into the city.
I mean, sure, some fools will pay the toll, but it really looks like the road builder is hoping to capture a clientele that doesn’t know the other roads exist.
I disagree. I think that is an overly simplistic view of the situation.
Some people buy iPhones and Samsung Ultras and whatever else. Some people use the same basic phone they had ten years ago. Both are valid. It’s no different here, if you’re happy with the free stuff then cool, if you want the very best Lemmy app which has had over a decade of development then also cool.
Saying that people are fools because they want to pay for the software they use and have made a value judgement to do so is absurd.
Sync was a fine Reddit app, but it was never the best. If you want to pay a fortune for mediocrity, enjoy yourself.
Yeah it is a bit too much.
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It is only $12.99 to remove ads; the subscriptions also remove ads, but add extra features that you may not need
Not anymore, it’s bumped up to $19.99
It’s 22usd here to remove ads
Yeah, 22 Euros here as well. A little too much for just removing ads…
How do I remove the ads without the ultra subscription? I can only see the full ultra suite options.
maybe you didn’t update the app?
I checked and ensured there were no updates pending. Where is the ad removal options in the settings?
there is an option to just remove ads at 20$ one time payment.
There’s a discussion to be had about the pricing structure of subscription based apps, but I catch the drift you’re not here for a debate.
There’s two options here:
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you deliberately chose to ignore the cheaper $20 ad removal option and chose to engage in bad-faith flamebaiting instead
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you’re incompetent and never even saw the cheaper option and instead of chosing to leave sync behind and use one of the myriad of other apps, chose to engage in bad-faith flamebaiting instead.
Take that attitude of yours and get right the fuck out of here. Discussions like you’re inciting them are not welcome here. Get the fuck out, where you and that mental diarrhea of an opinion of yours belong.
RIF Golden Platinum was less than 5$ onetime. This app is equivalent to a web browser. It’s not like they are hosting lemmy themselves. No need for monthly subscription. Stop being a little bitch.
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I know I’m cheap and I know this app is great and is a lot of work but fuck, this is expensive. Subscriptions are the worst model capitalism can offer. And the one time payment price is ridiculous, I can’t afford that.
Realistically it’s the only way he can sustain the development costs with such a small userbase. I’ve subscribed monthly to show my support. It’s not really that much money considering how much I use sync.
I did yearly and I’ll probably get lifetime once we’re out of beta. 18 bucks a year is the price for 1 month of Netflix, which ain’t that bad at all.
These models are designed in such a way that those who can afford to support do, and those who can’t afford to still have access through the free version.
They certainly don’t expect everyone to purchase ultra, let alone lifetime.
I recently cancelled my Netflix and Spotify accounts because of horrible support and constant rate hikes. It’s the perfect time to splurge and support a dev that deserves the money.
that is one time payment for sync ultra.
there is also a one time payment to just remove ads, at 20$.
I feel as though this information is left intentionally absent in this post.
App development ain’t cheap and lifetime subscriptions are an incredible deal if you like the features and intend to keep using the app for the next decade plus. But you’ve got to look at it that way or else it’s not worth it.
if you like the features and intend to keep using the app for the next decade plus and it remains available for that long
FTFY
Great point. I am not familiar with sync or the dev so I couldn’t speak to their reliability, although the outpouring of support suggests they’ll be active.
And most of the ultra features are things that require hosting or external paid apis.
the free one works well. and I got an adblocker I think
I think the ultra price for reddit was like 30 dollars for lifetime. 100+ bucks just seems like way to much.
Its $179 Australian. Absolutely not worth it to me.
So I’m not an app developer, so I might be completely off base, but I don’t really understand a lot of the arguments against this.
Firstly, there’s an ad free one time cost that in my opinion seems very fair. Secondly, as I’m looking through the feature for Ultra, most of the features seem to be things that require an external server. I’m not sure how push notifications work so I can’t comment on it, but syncing settings across devices for example doesn’t happen at the instance level. That kind of thing could only be done through a server owned by the dev. However, it is very likely that the dev doesn’t own a server, and is instead renting on a VPS, which is a subscription for them. So in order to provide these particular services, the dev has to pay a subscription. So would it not make sense that those that enjoy the benefits of this subscription the dev pays, also have to pay a subscription? In my mind that simply seems fair, in order to support a dev that has clearly put a lot of time and effort into making a great app.
The user base for Lemmy is significantly smaller than Reddit. The dev needs a smaller number of people to be able to support the operating costs of the app (as well as the wellbeing of the dev) which means that necessarily a different (and steeper) pricing model would be necessary.
I do not think it’s fair to claim that Lemmy API access is free and therefore there are no operating costs, because there’s more to the app than API calls. It is indeed correct that API access is free, which seems to me to be the precise reason why there exists a free version of the app that you don’t have to pay for in the first place. All API calls within the app are free. There are no paywalled Lemmy API calls, at least from what I can tell. But again if I’m wrong I’ll admit it if someone can inform me.
I think you’re spot on and it applies in general to why we see a trend of subscriptions. When we all got our first smartphones, most apps were local and it didn’t cost the developer more if they had 1M downloads compared to if they had 50 downloads.
The thing is as always comparing. For that price there are things out there that had much bigger development and costs and offer better stuff, plus he had recouped most of the costs already when it was for reddit, yes there was new development of course but it wasn’t a new app. Apart from that this is not a service with big recurring expenses, the only exception is the cloud functionality and let’s be honest that also probably is cheap considering the size of the backups.
In any case I believe that the solution is as simple as not using it if people are not interested.
If the dev was fair, he would split the revenues of all the models with the instances to keep them alive. The free API call doesn’t matter if the instances close.
wow isn’t that like 6 years of subscription? so expensive
Yea something in the 3ish year sub price would be more reasonable
Nope
Just use FOSS apps for Lemmy. There are plenty good ones. Thanks to all devs and contributors!
Yup, I have the beta versions of voyager, memmy, and mlem on my phone and just alternately switch to whichever app gets a new update; or if one happens to be buggy or unstable.
The only thing missing for me in Voyager is push notifications. Anyone know how to make that happen on iOS?
But as much as I like voulyager, if Apollo converted to a Lemmy app tomorrow, I would def pay sync prices no ads.
This. When it comes to Apollo like feel and UI, for now voyager is the only option, right?
Voyager is the only option as far as I know. And unfortunately, it seems Apollo dev Christian Selig is not interested in converting Apollo to use Lemmy’s api at this time since he seems to ignore comments that suggest it.
That’s wild. Like man I’m impressed with Sync and think it’s great but you’d have to be using it for 7 years for this to be worth it…Lemmy is so new you’d be mad to be making a gamble like this.
Just run your phone through a free private DNS server and never see an ad again. I use dns.adguard.com.
None of my free apps show any ads on my phone.
I do this. But I would still like to pay the dev. Just not those prices,
There’s also the ad removal option for 20$ one time. If you don’t need the other features of ultra.
I mean sure, but that doesn’t support the hard work the developer or into this… So…
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Those donation buttons, rarely ever get used. Because everyone would rather just think that everyone else donated so it’s fine if they don’t. And sure, some do donate (I’ve donated before) but that’s the actions of the very few.
I do that too on my Samsung phone. Do you know a way to do it on iPhone?
Check out their instructions. You’ve got a couple options:
I just can’t get myself to trust an ex Russian, offshore company with my dns traffic
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No API costs but Lemmy is still in constant and early development and would not doubt require many changes in the years to come.
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Well I’ve used Sync Pro for reddit for over 11 years with constant updates and I only paid 1.99 for that so I have pretty good faith in the developer this go around…
Yea no.
My favorite lemmy app is firefox :^)
But no really, what kind of shit is this? Pay 110€ to browse social media that already has no ads?
Yeah using and loving lemmy is in part due to the solid web UI and because it doesn’t nag me like a removed to install some app unlike reddit did. Same reason why I loved libreddit as my preffered frontend. Whatever sync is doing is outrageous, not getting even a “try” download from me.
Even Apollo Ultra was $50, and people thought that was expensive…
I would pay sync prices for Apollo ultra if it were to convert to Lemmy.
