- cross-posted to:
- technews@radiation.party
- cross-posted to:
- technews@radiation.party
In many ways, Mastodon feels like rewinding the clock on social media back to the early days of Twitter and Facebook. On the consume side, that means that your home feed has no algorithm (this can be disorienting at first).
Practically, it means that you see only what you want to see and only see it linearly. You never wonder “why am I seeing this and how do I make it go away?”. Content can only enter your home feed via your followed tags or handles and the feed is linear like the early days of social media.
Put it simply I just hate ads. Anything that puts in ads is terrible. Including Sync for Lemmy who seems to have completely missed the point of getting the hell away from Reddit.
The next terrible thing is automatically generated content and bots, but I guess those are also really just ads.
I disagree. I hate ads with a passion too. But as long as we can pay a sum to remove it, it is fair to have a free option with ads. A kinda unlimited “demo”.
We are fools for thinking anyone would give away their own time and effort for free forever. We have completely lost the perspective of how much things should cost because of how much we’ve taken for granted that was paid for with our personal data. And the biggest fools is those who think most software developers and server admins can live reliably on donations alone.
Though Youtube is taking the ads a bit far, maybe. One shouldn’t scare away users before they have even become customers.
Absolutely agree with your comment.
I don’t really know the solution either… I can’t afford to pay for all the things I enjoy online.
I was considering supporting 1 Twitch streamer I enjoy until I saw subscription cost. And if I paid that for every streamer or YouTuber I enjoy, I’d be broke in a single day lol.
I get so much incredibly good info and discussions online about my hobbies, all for no charge.
I used to subscribe on Patreon to my most useful resources/people, but in the end I just could afford it and had to cancel all my Patreon
I hate ads but I don’t understand how the internet would function without ads. No one could afford it
Yeah, I’m not rich enough to pay for every site and service either. A site like rockpapershotgun I left when it paywalled most of its contents, it wasn’t important enough to me to pay for. I’ve never paid for reddit, but i probably should have by how much i used it. Not that I will do that after what they’ve pulled lately. I donate to a fediverse server to put my money where my mouth is and at least pay for what I want to keep alive.
It would take some adjustment, but ads and data harvesting are the core problem to the enshiftification of the entire internet. You can’t have it both ways. We have this endless game of cat and mouse where we keep moving to the next platform after the last one becomes unusable due to ads and data harvesting.
You have to draw the line somewhere to end this pointless cycle and it is either pay for software and services or have people do only what they want to when they want to (FOSS). It really doesn’t cost that much if it isn’t attempting to compete with other software that grew with ad and data harvesting money.
I think you’re wildly underestimating the cost of people’s time, resources, infrastructure etc
“You can’t have it both ways” is exactly right. If the internet was user funded, as in, the user subscribes to every website or internet service they wish to use, then the internet would probably stop existing. (maybe I’m being too dramatic but also maybe not)
What’s the true cost of YouTube without ads or data harvesting? Probably only the rich could afford a subscription, which in turn would destroy the platform user base.
It’s not because Lemmy is FOSS it doesn’t cost any money. Infrastructure costs and the time invested by those that help the fediverse grow is a cost too. Be it the time invested by the people running instances or those writing custom ui’s, tools and yes even Lemmy apps. And if some people prefer to be compensated what’s wrong with that? You think the Lemmy devs are doing it for free?
I don’t see the relevance to my opinion that ads are bad, but it is an opinion that Lemmy developers also share. Also for the 1000th time there is nothing wrong with selling software. I just disagree with ads and data harvesting.
Agreed, but even if free ad tiers exist, web trackers have to also exist to track everything you do, just in case you use the ad tier again.
Privacy shouldn’t be something unaffordable.
Um Linux and FOSS, kinda show you wrong in that many people are happy to see others use their work for feee.
We are fools for thinking capitalist solutions are the solutions we need.
Major Linux contributors are payed by their employers to work on the kernel.
So you really believe that FOSS is only developed by people doing this for free. Not saying there are no hobby projects developed by people in their free time but thinking that is how it works is pretty dumb. Postgresql, Mozilla, various Linux distributions providing “business solutions” - hell, even the Lemmy developers are funded.
You are a fool if you think all Foss developers are anticapitalist idealists.
The second ads are required the customer stops being the users and starts being the advertisers. This starts the enshittification
snowballshitball, Randers.It’s a good thing you have the option to pay to remove ads and stay the customer, then
Legit. I paid $3 for Sync back in 2014 and used it daily for nine years.
Wrong. The next terrible thing is mass-AI-generated propaganda and disinformation. Like in the “dead internet” theory
Next? I think you misspelled “current”:-D
My bad. But I think we haven’t seen the full extent of it yet
Web of trust solves this problem, until people start intentionally trusting AIs as much as they do other humans, at which point it’s no longer a problem.
I’m working on the app full-time and the ads / subscriptions cover development costs.
I just wanted to say I greatly appreciate everything that you’ve done for reddit/lemmy in app development. Without Sync I’m not sure how I’d browse the web without pulling out all my hair due to all the ads and inconsistencies.
(シ_ _)シ
That isn’t a good justification to me. If it’s ok for you then it’s ok for the rest of the world too. You might believe ads aren’t bad and that’s fine. At least we can agree to disagree on that as our opinions aren’t reconcilable. If your app can’t exist without ads then I don’t believe it should exist at all. Or any other software in the world.
It can exist without ads, and does, but not everyone is willing to compensate his time and effort with money
You want developers who spent years studying design and development, to spend months developing an app, to just give that app away for free?
People like you are why more and more developers join big corporations for salaried position rather than trying to make it by themselves in the indie scene. Because they know they can’t make it in the indie scene because you are too cheap to pay for their apps (either by buying the app, or by consenting to see ads)
Sync for Lemmy exists as a paid, ad-free version. The ad-supported version only exists for people who don’t want to, or can’t, buy the app.
If not ad-supported, how would you propose a free product earn revenue to stay free?I see further down discussion addresses my question.
I just paid the one time fee for no ads. Works for me.
This is only FOSS bros making a bigger deal than it should, I like FOSS I use FOSS but they need to chill a bit.
Seriously
When’s the last time you developed and released a full fledged software project for free?
deleted by creator
Lemmy has gotten quite a bit of money in grants. It’s safe to say that without the grants allowing the lemmy devs to work on it full time, it wouldn’t be as functional as it is now. Getting grants really isn’t easy and that shouldn’t be the barrier to whether or not you can be compensated for your work.
Doesn’t sound like it from your initial statement
I’m aware. I’m pointing out the irony that most people who bash on non-FOSS projects are rarely involved in the development of such themselves.
If you are suggesting ads are the only way to fund software then you are mistaken. For example you can sell it for money to consumers.
Which… Sync does. So why are you bashing on it?
It still has ads. It can’t take the moral high ground of selling software if it also has a free with ads version to try and convince people to subscribe. Get rid of the ad version and only sell the software and then it will actually have some integrity.
Wait… So you’re arguing… Less options is BETTER? That somehow if they took away the choice of seeing ads and made payment mandatory, instead of giving users the choice, that would be more moral?
WTF?
I hate ads too, but devs have to eat so why should we not pay them when we use an app or service they spend countless time making and maintaining?
Sync is a one-time payment of £17.99 / $20 to remove ads and for the amount I’ll be using this app, I think that’s absolutely fair. I’ll spend more on one takeaway pizza on a Friday night.
If there is one reason to support ads, only one reason, is for using Sync for Lemmy.
Bad content feels much much worse to me. E.g it is so infuriating to see those fake prank videos with tons of likes and positive comments. It kills my hope in humanity every time… At least an ad could be for some interesting legit product. 🫠
We have different reasons for getting the hell away from reddit. I came to lemmy because reddit killed sync. I paid like $3 for Sync in 2014 and used it every day until Reddit killed it without seeing a single ad. So, not only do I disagree with Sync for Lemmy missing the point of getting away with reddit, but I also disagree with the notion that sink for Lemmy is in any way bad for having an ad - supported tier when you can pay a negligible amount of money ( $20 in 2023 ) and never see an ad again for the entire lifetime of the app.
Are there ads on Sync? I’ve been using it exclusively for the last week or so and haven’t seen a single one.
I’ve been using Sync for Lemmy since it was first released and I still haven’t seen an ad. I’m pretty sure it’s a bug.
Jerobi is great.
Pretty much all the Lemmy clients for Android are great, and I think the iOS clients are very competent too.
Sync is garbage. I’ve tried every Lemmy app and settled on Voyager. It’s no Relay but it’s one of the most developed Lemmy apps available.
(I’m still upset that Relay’s developer decided to play along with Spez’s new rules and start charging users for API access. It was such a good app and I’ll miss it dearly)
AFAIK pretty much all the lemmy apps are decent. There’s no reason to bash on any of them just because it’s not your preference