Sync Ultra is a very reasonable $17 a YEAR. YouTube Premium is reaching that per MONTH. I have sync downloaded and it was the first thing I did. Thanks j for the beautiful app.
EDIT: There are many counterpoints and actually good discussion happening down below. Even if you don’t agree, thanks for showing me a different perspective!
If you want to support Sync, make sure to support the Lemmy Devs and your instance holders as well!
*This post was made early in the day before the update.
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What’s more infuriating is that Lemmy itself doesn’t have ads but Sync has, sadly.
I understand, but the dev works on this app full time so he has to earn a living somehow. Even the core Lemmy devs are able to work on Lemmy full time because they got some funding from a grant.
In my recollection sync for reddit had multiple long gaps in communication from the dev, including pretty shortly after subscriptions were first announced. I appreciate the desire to be paid, but I didn’t find it clear that there were ongoing development or support efforts.
He took a few months off here or there for irl issues. I’ve been using Sync for nearly a decade, my personal opinion is that the drama is overblown. Even if he disappeared I would have gotten my money’s worth out of the app, I used it daily for 1 - 2 hours a day.
However I understand not wanting to pay a subscription, the dev said a non-sub Pro version will be available. Hopefully that is true.
Agreed, I’ve been using sync since 2016 and yeah the Dev disappeared here and there for a bit but it was always for personal reasons. Shit happens. The drama was definitely a bit much IMO.
That being said, I’m absolutely sick of everything turning into subscriptions, I’ll wait for either the lifetime option or just removing ads.
Oye, Timothy
Oye beltalowda, fo keng to im gut.
I mean i agree the dev should be paid for the work. But it just seems a bit odd to require a subscription to remove ads using a service that does not have ads or backend cost from a api. I think there should be no ads or at the very least a one time purchase to remove just ads. Like I understand a subscription for like power user features. And i am not some cheap ass complaining I have probably given the dev 100+ dollars in support between patreon, ultra subscription, ultra lifetime purchases.
But the dev already confirmed that they’ll put a one time payment for removing ads though, just not in this beta release.
That information should be front and centre.
Yeah LJ clearly underestimated how much people hate subscriptions here
Really should have checked any thread on lemmy.ml about Sync then.
But when you serve ads on a platform that doesn’t have ads, why would I use the ad enabled app when I can just go on the actual site?
Everyone needs to make their own decision but IMO Sync’s UI is a million times better than the actual site even with ads.
But there are tons of other third party apps that are ad free that are just as good as Sync.
I’ll admit to being a bit confused because I’ve been using sync for a couple of hours now and have yet to see an ad myself.
Yeah, I’m not too happy about that. I’ll give this a few days, at least, but I can’t stand ads. It never occurred to me that they would be brought in for a platform that otherwise has none. I paid for a lifetime subscription on Sync for Reddit. For Lemmy, Connect is close enough to the Sync experience that I’m about to say fuck this and go back to it.
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No dev’s time comes for free, yet there are numerous other apps that are free with no ads. Sync is slightly more polished, but not enough to warrant the price.
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You don’t “host” the front end development of the client though.
It still takes dev time, and that’s expensive, and this is the beta implementation. Lj said he plans to add the lifetime option, but for this first release, he did not include it as he wanted to see how lemmy held up first. If this all died out in a couple weeks after the api changes from reddit, it would have been pointless. This allows for those of us who want to support the development now to enable him to focus full time. With thousands of users vs. the millions reddit had having a dollar purchase to remove ads, it just wouldn’t scale right now to make this a feasible full-time project.
Same here. I would buy lifetime again but I’m done with subs.
https://lemm.ee/comment/1774742
Guys, chill. It’s just the first public beta. At least give a man a few weeks to iron things out. Geez.
subscriptions based services are mostly about cash grabbing. I really hate it that you have to pay a subscription to use a software. I’ll purchase any software for a reasonable price but I’d never subscribe for a software product like this.
Everything is a subscription because users demand their software be updated on a consistent basis. That’s the nature of software development.
The problem is how apps are bought on mobile now.
With PC applications, you’d buy a specific version and you would maybe get updates for a year. Then the developer would release an update and you would decide whether it was worth buying the update for the new enhancements. If it wasn’t then you’d stick with the old version until the next new version and make the choice again. This way the developer gets paid regularly by new and existing users if they produce a good app.
On mobile, you buy an app and expect to get updates for the life of the app. The developer is expected to keep producing updates whether the app is complete or not otherwise their app is labelled as dead. They only get paid by new users.
That second model is simply not sustainable from the developer’s point of view for any reasonably sized app so they need to think of ways to make it work. There are only two options which are ads and subscriptions and people don’t like either.
Of course, PC apps are also moving to subscriptions to remove the option that you used to have to not pay them for a year or two if they’re not providing good enough updates.
Because he will always have to work on the app as long as it lives. So subscription does make sense here. And 17 dollars ain’t much at all
Isn’t sync also free?
From what I’ve heard, you pay by viewing ads. Those can be blocked at the DNS level, though.
dns.adblock.com removes the ads, tho it leaves a square where the ad would have shown up at.
You also give away your data.
I just downloaded sync and don’t see ads. I do run dns66 though so that must be it.
Yep, but you still see a big ass block where the ad would be, which isn’t the case in any other Lemmy app.
I haven’t seen a big empty block yet.
what blocker do you use? that’s what I see with nextdns
Found out I don’t see ads because I’m using small cards
Dns66
Oh, but Adobe charges the very reasonable $600/yr and Autodesk a bargain $3000+ per year for their software, so clearly Sync must not be that good to only be asking $17 a year. I think I’ll look for something more professionally priced, instead.
First thing I did after opening the app was to look for the Pro (ultra) in-app purchase. But monhtly payments, no thank you.
Yea, I would gladly pay to remove ads. Like I already did for the Sync for Reddit. Twice. But no one likes subscriptions.
Same here. I hate subscriptions but would happily buy a Pro version like I did with Sync for Reddit.
What would you be willing to pay? I paid £4 for Sync in 2018. I can’t imagine a Pro (non-ultra) version would be that cheap this time.
At the minimum I’d think it’d match 1 year of Ultra (£17). Not sure if I’d pay that for Lemmy since I still use Sync for Reddit more.
Realistically, it would need to be higher than 1 year of Ultra, unless it only included some of the perks of Ultra. If it was priced the same for 1 year vs Lifetime, very few users would pay for the yearly sub.
Personally, I’m happy to keep paying the monthly sub to support LJ, if the development stalls or even stops completely, I’ll be stopping my subscription. I’m happy to provide continuous support for apps that I use daily if it means that the development continues.
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Which is in line with my comment, I was simply saying that Ultra Lifetime will most likely cost more than Ultra Yearly.
New update Beta 25 dropped. Ad removal IAP is $12.99 USD.
Edit: increased to $19.99 USD
Edit 2: Ultra lifetime IAP added in Beta 26 for $99.99 USD
Yeah, same here. It is a shame :(
I’m really confused why people feel this way. Can’t you just cancel it if you feel like it’s not worth it anymore?
I just don’t do subscriptions. One of the aspects I hated about my foray into the Apple app store where everything seemed to be subscription or ads. Quickly missed Android and places like f-droid where I knew I could find ad free and subscription free open source alternatives.
I was happy to pay for apps like Procreate and Lumafusion though, so it’s not that I’m against paying for ads. I just don’t do subscriptions.
I generally do not do subscriptions either, but I do make some exceptions for specific apps/services. At least for me, Sync is one of those for now.
When I think about it I think it’s mainly been web hosting type services where data is being streamed or stored on the cloud that I’ve been fine with subscriptions for. And then not so much for pure software preferring more pay once and then pay for a new version update down the line type of approach like Office 2021 for example over Office 365. Although, I’ve moved mostly to libreoffice.
Same for games. I’d rather pay Diablo 4 $70 over paying for PS+ or game pass. Chose to forgo online multiplayer than pay for PS+ on my PS4 last Gen. Generally preferred a large one time lump sum than small monthly payments for things, since I suppose I just a distaste for adding more monthly expenses to the already growing list of monthly expenses.
Unless the app offers you cloud functions like email, cloud storage, multi-player gaming, or social media sites(lemmy, kbin, mastodon), etc. I see subscriptions as a no-go.
I usually hate subscriptions that try to squeeze you for money.
In the case of sync, I see it as a recurring donation for LJ. 15 bucks is what I make in like 20 minutes as an engineer myself, so ‘paying’ 20 minutes of my salary to a developer of such an awesome app is no problem for me.
I think Christian with Apollo went with a much better approach where he didn’t put in any ads, but limited the app to only being able to use one account and putting a limit to the filter list. But, you could buy the pro version to remove those limits and he put in subscription options too. If subscription is to be pushed his approach felt like the most tasteful way to go.
Sync does have some cloud features (and I suspect push notifications will be one of them soon), but yeah, I understand paying for them isn’t for everyone.
I gladly pay subscriptions for services. I see that the Ultra has cloud backup of settings, but how much storage could that possibly use? Certainly not $2/mo worth. For that price I’ll want the equivalent of 100Gb of storage in the cloud.
edit: I’d send $2/mo. to the admins of my instance. They’re running the servers that host all this content.
Good point, I didn’t think about it when I wrote my comment, but I agree that there’s a difference between paying for a software product and paying for a software service.
As someone from a third world country, fuck no. That shit is too expensive for me. Maybe to you privileged folk it’s reasonable. To me it’s nonsense.
I feel shitty about it too since I was a long time sync pro user, I thought sync for lemmy would also have an affordable pro version but fuck me I guess
Ultra =! Pro
Adfree is available as a separate lifetime purchase for 10 USD.
‘Remove ads’ is ₹2000 ($24.17) in India.
Wait a couple days, regional pricing is not working yet. That’s a Google problem.
Still too expensive.
I’ve used sync for reddit just over 12 years long. If I get the same time out of lemmy, that’s 80 cents per year.
If that’s too much for you, I can’t help you.
Where is the one time purchase?
Did you upgrade to beta 25 yet? Generally you might wait a few more days until all the pricing stuff is working properly, google is still rolling it out.
You have countries where people don’t earn $1 a day. Once they cover their basic needs, $10 is like wining the lottery.
It’s where Youtube does better. The price of premium is adapted to the local situation.
Bro, go away. I’ve seen you way more than I want
Lol I’m a bit stoned and this made me laugh. I love how you spoke to that person like they were your sibling.
Living in a first world country is not “privilege” there are people who didn’t choose where to be born.
Just use the free app like I did when I lived in Venezuela (I was born there)
Privilege is not something necessarily gained on purpose. Being born to a wealthy family is privilege and not a choice either, but there is undeniable privilege. It’s not a negative thing, it’s something one should be aware of where they may have it and recognize it. It’s not something to feel guilty over, it just… is.
Dude you don’t know what privilege means huh
Buddy that is literally the definition of privilege
Dude, delet this
Give me a one-time purchase of like $10-15 and I will, but I don’t do (non-voluntary) subs.
I don’t need any of the push notification services.
I remember going for the largest OTP for Sync quite happily. Might have been £30 or something. Subscription? Nah.
Same. More than happy to support development, but I don’t need another automatic subscription. I did OTP in the old app several times (purchased for different accounts, and again just because I use dns ad blockers, but still wanted to support the app). I am happy to do the same here, but not as a subscription.
Lj, please offer an option for OTP that removes ads while still being expensive enough to cover your costs.
It doesn’t need to include push notifications or image preloading, or any other features that require you to maintain or rent infrastructure. I would be willing to pay $20 or $30 for a one time purchase option that doesn’t make me feel like I am a drain to you when I block ads and tracking.
I will never look at ads or consent to tracking or violating my privacy, and I am willing to pay a (non-recurring) fee to enable that. I am sure I am not alone here.
I agree with essentially everything you’ve said. I left Reddit almost entirely because I refused to give up Sync, but I will not pay a subscription for it.
Just wanted to add that an update went out in the play store that allows a one time fee to just remove ads and tracking. I would prefer no google play services, but I am willing to compromise. I just paid $20 for my phone, and another $20 for my wife’s.
Thanks for adding the option, @ljdawson!
Would you be okay if the one time purchase meant you did not receive any updates to Sync? Or perhaps it only got a few months of updates? That seems fair to me.
No, but I’d be willing to pay years ahead at once for something that I know I’ll be using for longer than that.
Everything has an expiration date anyways, because I don’t live forever. Who knows if we’ll still be using Android 10 years from now. It’s just basically a discount on very long term usage that gives the money ahead of time while taking the gamble that I will actually be using it for longer than the subscription price would be.
Yeah the pro version will do that
The app is amazing and I’m not against the Dev just because of what they are charging. They can charge whatever they want, if there is a market willing to pay it’s fine.
But 115€ lifetime is like 10-20 times more than the price I would pay. So as a consumer I’ll just stay with the free version or another Lemmy app.
As a former infinity user, “Infinity for Lemmy” is the one I’m waiting for. I’m also interested in trying Voyager android app once it is released.
Now this “sync for Lemmy” app looks very well probably the best Lemmy app at the moment. Only thing is lacking for me (so far) is to have community icons in the small cards post layout. (So I can identify what’s the topic is about before reading the title).
For the text size I changed base text to Medium and then I changed all the relative post/title/comment text to “Regular”. This gives me the same text size as Infinity, at least in the comments.
I currently am using Infinity for Lemmy. It’s pretty damn great despite the fact that it’s still early development.
Yes me too. But it’s still an alpha. An alpha that evolves really fast day by day. The new Dev seems amazing.
Sync ATM looks so polished, elegant, material design well implemented, is fast, it hides the bottom nav bar when scrolling down (infinity also does this) etc.
So now I switched to sync as main app. But I still keep updating Infinity until it gets more polished and stable.
(In Reddit I keep using Infinity+).
I wouldn’t buy YouTube Premium either and they have significant hosting costs compared to the this app. So do the Lemmy server owners as well.
I think the dev deserves compensation for their app but the asking price is too much, for me anyway.
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I would start by donating to your home instance, first and foremost.
But yeah if you love the all you’re using, whichever it is, donate to its devs, too
I’m donating to myself and nothing is happening! /s
I moved to Lemmy because Sync was announced that’s where they were going, but I’m not going to pay a monthly subscription for an app. I expected a reasonable one time payment like I had on Sync for Reddit. If that’s not an option then I’ll have to figure something else out
They have the Ultra lifetime option which is a 1-Time payment…
Where? I see monthly and annual.
check if your app is updated
This app is amazing but don’t you think 115 euros are too much?
Hate subscription based models. I wouldnt mind paying one-off but until then sorry sync , I am FOSSing
Actually the app just updated and has a one time purchase for removing ads now.
The one-time IAP is implemented now.
Lmao $100. There are so many other services who’s lifetime is less than that and aren’t just a front end.
This is starting to feel like a pretty disrespectful cash grab. Sync Pro was my Reddit app but it was never a $100 service.
Edit: Ah so there’s tiers now. $20 for ad free as an option too. Meanwhile you get a lesser focused experience because obviously anything worth a damn is going to be Ultra exclusive.
It’s almost like the Lemmy audience is a thousand times smaller than the Reddit one and the dev still has bills to pay. Fewer users, fewer subscribers means you have to charge more.
It’s not $100 unless you want a specific combo or have the means to show extra support for the dev.
Ad free is $20.
Yea I remember seeing something from earlier today about just having enough subscription users to cover effectively minimum wage.
Maybe when there are more users the price will go down but there was definitely a lot of work put into this upfront and the user base is still much smaller.
People like to forget that this is his job. It’s really about supporting the time it takes to develop and maintain sync. Just because it’s just a frontend, doesn’t mean it’s free to maintain.
So they need to make all the revenue they made off Sync for Reddit in one week instead of growing with Lemmy over time like they did with Reddit?
What up front costs could there be here? Obviously their time, but no one is arguing it should be free. But making a premium app 10x the cost of any app, let alone their own Reddit version, is a crazy ask.
This is a gold rush through and through. Clearly the dev see’s an open market, ran into it as fast as possible, charging an astronomically high fee, and will likely bring it down to reasonable levels as soon as another app, which there will be, shows up with reasonable pricing.
It’s not $100. It can be, but ad free, alone, is $20.
I understand the confusion, but it’s not $100. Or need not be.
While I agree that the price is a bit steep, there’s also the fact that the userbase for Lemmy is much smaller than what it was for Reddit. To make a reasonable amount of money (in the dev’s opinion), they need a higher price to compensate for the lower sales. Of course, that higher price may discourage people from laying for it at all, causing their income to be too low.
I’m still using Jerboa myself, but checking out alternatives as well. I still don’t know whether Sync is worth it for me at this price.
You’re assuming his fixed expenses are exactly what they were a decade or even a year ago. People have obligations. Houses, cars, insurance, loan payments, all of that. Reasonable expenses at the time of acquisition based on the reasonable expected income.
You can’t assume someone can have their income reduced by 100% for a month, then maybe get ten percent of that back without issues. He’s got bills to pay. This is his full time job.
Curious where you are seeing the tiered options listed? I’m only seeing the 99.99 option for lifetime…
You click on the icon in the left hand side and it opens up a pop out, and one of the options is remove ads for $20. But then you don’t get sYnC uLtRa features.
God damn bro. Its $100. Fuck that , I would rather give that money to a homeless or someone I need than paying it for a stupid app.
It’s $20
Then do that? I bet you won’t though.
Why you people getting so salty over some app? Fuck its like android, tesla,Apple fanboys. You guys are better than this BS.
Same. I refuse to subscribe to an app on any platform (mobile, console, PC). Not about to start now. At least they offer a lifetime subscription unlike some software (*cough*SignalRGB*cough*), but $99 is a little ridiculous. That’s more than a video game! $15-20 is more reasonable. IIRC I only paid about $10 for Relay for Reddit back then.
what is fossing
Checkout Fdroid app store.
i have it
That’s what FOSS means. Free and Open source software
fuck subs…onetime payment every time, but I won’t pay a sub for an app for a service that is free…
I donate to the lemmy instances, but not an app!
I’m right with you. Sync was the only reason I even started using Reddit. I happily paid the onetime fee and I’m more than happy to do it again. If the sub actually covered costs to keep Lemmy-instances running it would be one thing but that’s not the case now. Let’s see how it all paves out.
Subbed to lemmy.world Patreon, one time payment for the app. I like having nice things, nice things only come if there’s reward in making them. I’m someone’s reward for doing something nice.
I mean… Lemmy is free to use, it’s just the sync dev(s) that put in work to make it beautiful. Art is free… But an art exhibit is not.
Idk. Other people have made a good point. $17/yr is not bad. Especially for a team who have always been awesome.
The test of reasonableness is different for everyone.
I have no interest in cloud backup, or any other feature that incurs a cost to the dev. So why would I pay a subscription fee to “cover” those features?
If I like the app after sustained use, I might be willing to pay a one-time $8-$12 fee to remove ads/thank the dev/buy them a coffee
But I have zero interest in an ongoing subscription at this stage. There’s just not enough value for me in spending that sort of money.
I might be willing to pay a one-time $8-$12 fee to remove ads/thank the dev/buy them a coffee
it’s $20 one time purchase to remove ads
That’s still a bit steep, just to remove ads.
No regional pricing.
I would never pay more then 10$ for a full game i could play for hundreds of hours, let alone 20$ to remove black rectangles from a free app.
sync ultra is just stupidly expensive.
Don’t really care about any ultra features. Once one-time-pay ad removal is there, I’m getting it. Just like I had Sync Pro and Sync Ultra (if those aren’t reinstated even). I will not do subscriptions.
Ad removal is here, you have to update the app
Indeed! Just purchased
I am incredibly saddened that tagging a user is an ultra feature :(
I used to tag bots so that my blood pressure wouldn’t rise immediately upon reading pro-Putin/Trump comments.
Hmthe one-time IAP is implemented now.
YouTube Premium pays for Youtube itself and provides a higher payout to the content creators you watch. If you actually want to support the people you watch on Youtube Premium is the best option for that, premium views pay out sometimes 10x as much as ad revenue on videos. It’s the best way to have a good experience and support the people you watch outside of giving them money directly.
Meanwhile, this is like paying some 3rd party website to scrape Youtube and make sure the people you watch don’t see a penny. Since presumably if one of the servers like Lemmy.World breaks down and adds ad’s to offset the astronomical server fees and growth, Sync would block them, if not they are doing a disservice to people who bought ad free.
This is paying to the creator of the app, who works on this app full time, unlike most devs whose Lemmy apps are side projects.
like paying some 3rd party website to scrape Youtube
A sad day we live in that people see it this way instead of questioning why there’s only one front end application for YouTube. Back in the day it used to be common to have different third party client applications for a backend service.
