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 lj for the beautiful app.
[EDIT: That was a poor comparison, as pointed out in the comments. Leaving it for discussion sake.
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 added the OTP option.]
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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
You actually have the only reasonable response in this thread
The dev has said that he’s working on making pricing regional in the next few weeks.
Ultra =! Pro
Adfree is available as a separate lifetime purchase for 10 USD.
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.
I’ve been working in developing aid for ages, and while true that there are places where people earn below $1, those people hardly have smartphones.
And if they do, they can use the ad supported version just fine.
“People have a right to ad free social media!” would be hard to fit on a sign.
‘Remove ads’ is ₹2000 ($24.17) in India.
Wait a couple days, regional pricing is not working yet. That’s a Google problem.
I hope that’s the case
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.
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
Another Venezuelan here. Im still living here.
Dude, delet this
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.
Sync for Reddit Pro was 2.99€… I was expecting that much or up to 5€ for Sync for Lemmy… But these prices are just ridiculous. As much as I like Sync I just can’t justify this kind of pricing when there are so many free alternatives without ads and tracking.
Right now I’m using Sync and it’s really nice but it’s not that much better than Jerboa for my use case.
I was paying 12 a year for Lastpass and that at least has uses, now using bitwarden, because it does the same and is free
I originally paid $5 or something for sync pro in 2014. That worked out to be almost 9 years of daily use for me and was way too cheap for the utility that was provided.
Lifetime subscriptions for $5 are not really sustainable for the developer, eventually the pool of new users dries up. I think 17$ a year is very reasonable, if not cheap (for users in western countries).
In 2014…
Hate subscription based models. I wouldnt mind paying one-off but until then sorry sync , I am FOSSing
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 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.
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.
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
What was Sync Ultra before?
Sync for Reddit - Sync Ultra
Sync for Lemmy - Sync Ultra
Hmthe one-time IAP is implemented now.
You can remove ads with sync pro (one time payment) , as well with sync ulta (subscription).
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
I am happy as well with Voyager as web app for both Android and PC.
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.
I’ve seen ads but I have also seen empty ad placeholders.
I’ve noticed that no ads are shown when you disable all tracking and reject cookies. Might be EU only though.
I’m Canadian, dunno if we’d have a similar effect.
Everything is a subscription because users demand their software be updated on a consistent basis. That’s the nature of software development.
Exactly. A lot of people fail to see this.
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.
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.
Fuck it, third
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
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.
Fuck off.
Im not paying you to remove the Ads that you injected into an addless service. Theres a half dozen other Lemmy apps already that dont pull this bullshit. And honestly synch doesnt do anything those apps dont. So other than being a mindless consumer or someone whose easily influenced by these vote manipulation shill posts, why the actual fuck would I spend money on it?
I spent money on it because someone spent the time to make the thing and I like the thing. Should people not get paid for making a thing? Do you only want to have something unpaid volunteers made?
I’ve been involved in open source stuff for decades, and it’s pretty close to dead for user facing things. The biggest reason is that no one can get paid for their efforts.
Should people not get paid for making a thing?
Clearly not an argument made in good faith, but ill bite anyway.
I never said people shouldnt get paid for stuff. Im saying the practice of making a service a worse and then asking people to pay you to undo the things you intentionally put in to make it worse is scummy.
Do you only want to have something unpaid volunteers made?
No, I want a good service, and if my choices are between an app that takes a free service, adds in their own shitty ads then asks you for money to restore it back to its original default quality, and an app that just provides that original default quality without asking me for money, then of course im going to go for the latter. Lemmy and the fediverse as a whole are things people have put time and effort into developing and they dont gimp it to try and sucker people into giving them money, have you spent money on lemmy? Would you be okay if the lemmy.world admins gimped this instance and asked you for money to un-gimp it? Probably not.
Its just a scummy business practice and avoiding it is a big reason WHY im on the fediverse in the first place.
Do you think that app developers can get by without ads? There are three options, with ads, without and give them a few bucks. Take advantage of community volunteers who do free labor.
Sync used to have separate versions, paid no ads, and free with ads. The Google Play Store penalized them for that. I don’t think that would make you happy, though you seem extremely hostile to the notion of people being paid for labor
Yes, because every other lemmy app seems to.
And if people were so willing to give money to these people as they claimed they could have a voluntary donation system no?
So you want option three, to take advantage of donated labor? Basically, as long as you get free stuff, you don’t care.
If you don’t want to give someone money for their time and labor, and you don’t want ads. Just don’t use the thing. You don’t have to be a dick about it alongside.
Now if you want to talk about the merits of Free Software, as in freedom, and how sync doesn’t adhere to that. That I would be more engaged in. But it’s pretty clear that all you want is free stuff made by other people donating their time and effort, with you benefiting.
3/10 concern troll dude. If you want to get a reaction out of people it’s better to not be so obvious about it.
If people didn’t want people to use their apps for free, then they shouldn’t make them for free. However, if I have a free app without ads, why in the hell would I turn to the guy who is asking me to pay for the same thing someone else is offering for free?
Thus was difficult to read. You think the sync developer ‘doesn’t want people use the apps for free’? No, they just want to not starve.
Do you have a job? Do you want to get paid for doing that job? Most people do. I do. If someone came to me and said oh fuck off you want to get PAID for this code? When some open source things also exist? No no no, you can’t, because open source things exist.
Genuine question, would you feel the same way if there was no ad-supported option and instead was just the paid option?
There is no making the service shittier in this scenario, instead you get the additional layer on top of the base service that the app provides. The value proposition is a different discussion in this case, but the app and developer believe that their tool adds functionality that the base service doesn’t provide and they feel that that functionality is worthy of compensation.
I would feel better about, but I still wouldn’t buy it.
I guess it’s a matter of perspective and subjective. I see it as paying back for a decade of practically free Sync experience for Reddit that I absolutely enjoyed, and as such I’m compensating the dev for that. Not saying others should apply the same logic (they shouldn’t). But it being a scummy practice is really up to what posting users interpret as value.
Ads like this really arent all that scumny my dude, i mean at least IMO lol.
You gotta pay the creator to use the app. Sync isnt free, You either pay with ads, or you pay with your buckaroos. Thats just how it works. And its pretty transparent. No trying to dupe you, hes not secretly selling your data (at least as far as i know). Either view ads so he gets paid, or pay him directly. I dont see anything wrong with this business model. The issue i have with ads is the intrusiveness of them, or the stealth of them. Reddits ads are scummy because they look like reddit posts, thats not cool.
Implementing ads after getting a user base (like in your lemmy.world example) is different because they are changing the model. If i were to join an instance that started off with ads, id be less miffed because if i like it enough i can stay and view ads / pay, or i would move to a different instance. I wouldnt call it scummy. I would understand that they gotta pay bills to keep that server on, and thats how they decided to do it.
For what its worth, i am a FOSS guy all the way, and take all opportunity to block ads. But im also willing to pay for software that i think deserves it. I donate to my lemmy instance, and have paid for Sync Ultra, because they are both great and the maintainers deserve to get paid :)
I wouldn’t have as much an issue if it was their own service, but the fact that lemmy exists without ads by default makes it feel like them adding their own ads is scummy.
Hey man you get my vote!
Adding a subscription too, WTF it’s literally the crappiest business system (on top of creating a problem, ads, and asking money to remove it).
You know 17$ a year is more than giving 10$ to the Lemmy Devs and using a free reader (give 5$ to them too a year and you still win)!
Hear hear! Here here even! Putting ads into a free service, then asking for money as a subscription to remove them. FFS. How can people fall for this? If your app is good, and I like it, I’ll pay. But don’t pull that crap.
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I’m not saying I’m entitled to anything, I’m not asking for anything. I don’t want to use sync for free, because there are tons of other free lemmy apps as well as the regular Web lemmy that are all free and without ads (I guess all those apps created themselves for free right)
I’m telling the OP to fuck off for making a post commanding people to buy premium time.
Do you think sync devs are entitled because they the actual content from lemmy for free, stuff their own ads in their to make money from it?
Get a grip dude. Throwing a tantrum isn’t going to get me to spend money on that app. Nor respect someone making something worse with ads to try and coerce people into paying for it.
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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Sync for Reddit also had regional pricing just like that.
Did Boost developer reveal pricing for Boost for Lemmy? It is still showing the pre-registering page for me.
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.
Isn’t sync also free?
From what I’ve heard, you pay by viewing ads. Those can be blocked at the DNS level, though.
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
You also give away your data.
Lots of entitlement here…
Saying someone makes enough in their day job so all their other contributions should be free is…wow.
I guess I’m one of the few that thinks all work should be compensated. Especially work I can’t do myself or that I prefer over others.
And really, it’s not up to me to say what that compensation should be. It’s only my job to decide if the offer is acceptable to me for what I perceive is the benefit over other options.
Because there are other options. But I’m here because I don’t want the other options. I would guess many others are, too.
Totally agree… This person does a shit load of work building and maintaining an app, they sure as hell should get paid for it.
No one says sync for lemmy should be free. Most people just oppose the subscription based model. Also our user data is being sold to data hoarding companies by sync for lemmy. That is extremely conflicting with the open source model of lemmy.
No one? What are you talking about? Have you read any of these threads?
Sync for Lemmy doesn’t have trackers and the one time purchase is $20
I’m not comfortable with a subscription model, sorry. I will happily pay for a one-time fee. For the use I do of Lemmy I’ll pay up to €5. If they want to release a new version of the app in, say, 2-3 years down the line and ask for a new fee, I’m fine too.
I’ll wait until Boost releases (it was my default Reddit app) and will choose between Sync, Boost, Summit, and Infinity paid versions.
It already has a one-time payment option. Try update and look in the settings.
Well, that was fast :)
Anyway, it is €115. That’s way out of my league. I will wait for Boost and see.
Oh you’re talking about sync ultra? Yeah that’s expensive af but just to remove ads is cheap. Your also paying for the ability to be a power user. It’s not meant for the majority of people, people asked for more features back on reddit, so lj made ultra. It’s that and to support the dev.
I fail to see the remove ads option. On settings I can only find the Sync Ultra section with monthly, yearly and lifetime subscription. I’m on beta 26, maybe is there a newer version?
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There is an option for life time Ultra now. For the United States it’s $99 USD. Honestly at that price making it a negative for me ghost rider. Although, respect anyone getting it. Good way to support the dev for something they use every day for the most part.
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Technically, they could publish a ReVanced patch…
Infinity paid version?
I mean, between those which have paid version (Boost and Sync, I think)
Infinity for Reddit has a paid version since the beginning of this year, but it’s identical to the FOSS version. Its just there so you can support the dev more easily.
Why are people so stingy when it comes to software pricing? I feel like the app store model of $1 apps really killed the general publics idea of the value of software and ended up driving the ad based revenue system a lot.
€5 is all you would pay? Let’s say you use the app one hour per week for two years, you are valuing that at ~0.004¢. that is astronomically low, and is already based off of a pretty low usage rate.
Do you think the app would provide less value to you over 2 years than a single beer at a bar?
At $20 us (I don’t know the cost in euros) and the same usage it puts Sync’s value at a still cheap 0.016¢ (USD)
Even if you only used it once per month over a 2 year period it’s still only about 20 cents each use.
In my opinion a $20 one time fee for an application that I will likely use daily, with a trusted track record and a quality experience is more than fair. That’s the same as a video game I would play for maybe 10 hours or a movie that I will watch once or maybe twice.
I didn’t mean to unload on you specifically, but I see this ‘outrage pricing’ a lot and it irks me.
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 the specific description and comment relative text size 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+).
As a former infinity user, “Infinity for Lemmy” is the one I’m waiting for.
https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy/releases
Yeah I’ve been using it for a week already but I mean that I was waiting for non alpha release
I don’t need the ultra features. I didn’t even need the pro features. I bought Sync pro for Reddit as a “thank you” to the author. A subscription is a bit different. I would be more willing to spend a couple bucks on each feature release than a subscription.
Prices are ridiculous, especially for returning users. The Lemmy app is basically the Reddit app. You can’t convince me that at least 85% of the code was re-used from it. If you used the code from the app I already paid for (twice) I feel like I should get a discount.
Subscription models suck too.
Same here. I waited for this App, am happy it is here, but I was shocked by the pricing. I paid for sync twice, and was willing to do it again, but this is ridiculous.
Exactly. I’d pay again if the prices were sane.
Would be nice if they had a discount for those that purchased app before…at least for the OTP.
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
