Holy shit y’all. Developers need to eat too. It’s totally fine to charge for an app or serve ads. LjDawson is a fantastic developer and really listens to his user base. Yes there are plenty of open source apps to use, but sometimes closed source is way more polished because the developer makes it their job to create the app. Living isn’t free. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Holy shit y’all. Developers need to eat too. It’s totally fine to charge for an app or serve ads.
You might be forgetting that these same developers refused to simply put in a subscription to their reddit apps to continue them, instead closing their apps and telling everyone to move to lemmy because that’s where their app will be…and now adding huge subscription fees and one-off fees on a platform that doesn’t charge them to use their API lol.
Maybe I’m just cynical but this really seems like the dollar signs lit up in the reddit app devs eyes the second reddits API changes got announced.
Okay let’s do the math. According to here there is expected to be about 55.79 million folks using reddit daily. Let’s say a good 5 million folks use Sync. Now, reddit said it would charge $0.24 per 1000 API calls. You can find that here. Now 1000 calls isn’t much at all really. Let’s say those 5 million folks just 1000 API calls a day ( they wont’ actually use ONLY 1000 ). So we have 1000 * 5,000,000 * 0.24 = $1,200,000,000. That’s per day. Does that seem sustainable to you? Like if folks were using MUCH MUCH less I could see your point. But the fact is…they weren’t and reddit were being assholes about it. Now compare that to what he’s charging. $17 bucks for a year. Let’s break that down and compare it to what he’d be paying per day. Say all 5 million users were paying for Ultra. That’s 5,000,000 * 17 = $85,000,000. Divide that by 12 to get per month. 85,000,000/12 = $7,083,333 per month. Divide by 30 for average revenue per day. $7,083,333/30 = $236,111. Now tell me that even comes close to $1,200,000,000. Your logic is flawed. This doesn’t even account for fees and possible server costs.
Let’s say those 5 million folks just 1000 API calls a day ( they wont’ actually use ONLY 1000 ).
Correct - 99% of those people will use nowhere near 1000 API calls a day. Each persons subscription only has to cover the costs of their API usage.
A $5/month subscription, at $0.24/1000 api calls, gives each user just under 21,000 API calls per month. Most people aren’t going to be doing anywhere close to that.
This doesn’t even account for fees and possible server costs.
Sync doesn’t need any server costs. It’s not hosting an instance of Lemmy.
Also your maths is off by 1000x lol. The cost would be 1.2mil a day, not 1.2bil a day. You’re multiplying by 1000 for some reason, when the $0.24 already gets you 1000 api calls. So if all 5 million used 1000 calls per day, that’s 5 million x $0.24, which is $1.2mil.
They would actually use much more. See [here] ( https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/141mjij/lets_talk_about_those_api_calls/). Basically almost everything is an API request. Just loading a post and doing very little you have close to 33 requests. Even if my math was wrong it’s still way too much to pay for per day. Especially if folks are using much more that 1000 API calls per day.
Just loading a post and doing very little you have close to 33 requests.
No you don’t. You can open Reddit and open a post with ~3:
1 for getting the posts on your front page
1 for checking your messages.
1 for getting the comments on a post.
Where are you getting “close to 33 requests from”? That post that says they’ve done “very little” and used 33 calls? Ah yes, because everyone “checks who the mods are +1” every time they log in to reddit. Every single user is a mod who checks their modmail (+1).
BTW I know how API’s work, I’m a web developer. Most people will not go anywhere close to using 1000 API calls a day.
Okay so say I believe you. Why do you think a large majority of third party devs shuttered their projects they worked on for so long if it was just as easy as adding a subscription fee? Why didn’t more of them do it? I know of one that actually implemented a subscription. If folks were actually doing much less than 1000 API calls daily then you’d think most devs would have gone that way right?
They want people to move here instead where they can continue having zero costs and making millions of dollars.
It literally is as easy as adding a subscription. They know how many api calls the average person makes. Even if they put the subscription at $10 a month, they should have given people the option. It’s not like the users would run up absurd bills for them - the user would just get cut off in the extremely unlikely event that they use all their api calls. Hell why not make a tiered subscription for ranges from casual users to power users?
It’s hilarious that people jump all over the “the developers deserve to be paid” line, while saying Reddit don’t deserve to be paid for making these developers millionaires for free.
Can I ask why you think it isn’t as easy as adding a subscription fee?
You replied to the very answer to your question. Apps can still be businesses, not everything has to be free. There’s a bunch of free alternatives, this is just one of the paid ones.
They moved to lemmy because the fees on Reddit where exorbitant, and he’d have to raise the prices too much to keep same wage (Haven’t looked at the numbers). Afterall, it’s he’s app, and he’s to decide what wage he wants to keep working on it.
No that’s not correct. sync for Reddit already had the ultra subscription. The problem was he would have had to up the price on the sub substantially to cover the Reddit API fees.
made a whole meme to defend nitpicking words, 3 replies so far nitpicking my words and ignoring my original argument like a true contrarian, keep going
The one time payment for no ads used to support the original app for years and now it’s forced in a subscription model, the definition of greediness. I dont know why you support such behaviour and insult others on top of it, (oh the irony) but you do you.
I tried an analogy since you didnt see the fallacy of your point, that failed too I guess, telling me dont judge the dev unless youve been in their shoes would mean u cant judge politicians either, I can and should have opinion on stuff regardless
Again, point me to where I said don’t judge. I didn’t. Judge away.
If you look at my post again, you’ll find that I tried to suggest that when you make your own app (and you should), you should decide on your cost model which sounds like it’ll be free. I eagerly await your release!
So what is your point exactly? That you shouldn’t charge for software you develop to access a free network? There are plenty of free solutions for you.
their default model isnt based on ads like sync for lemmy
a third party client isnt as much work as the fediverse as u see it took him a month
3)ads used to be a one time payment for his old app, so the money was enough for him back then and now hes even richer so why do you excuse his greediness?
It took him a month because he adapted a code base he had been working on for a decade.
It’s not greediness to want to be able to pay your bills. This is his job. Also a single payment option has already been developed it’s just not made in live yet.
He was already paying his bills with the one time payment and now hes even richer, this is the definition of greediness. Also his future plans are irrelevant here I am judging his current actions and the OP comment defending them.
PS, weird how the no ads feature takes longer to develop than the recurring payment with 10 features, INCLUDING the no ads one!
I said rich-ER buddy, how did you miss the one word? One time payment was enough when he had even less money back when he didnt have the reddit money yet so theres no excuse to hide no ads option behind a subscription model, especially for a foss platform, its not like its a reddit client and pays for api
Who cares if he is rich. He is making a good product and people want that product. He can charge whatever he wants, there is no point taking it personally. If you don’t want to pay, there is no one forcing you - you can even continue to use the app for free if you want.
If getting paid for the work you do that people are willing to pay for is greedy, then yes I suppose he is greedy, and so are everyone else who works for a living and try to up their earnings.
Charging 2.5x more in the span of one month for the same feature is the essence of software development and people cheer u for it? Sheesh im in the wrong business
Holy shit y’all. Developers need to eat too. It’s totally fine to charge for an app or serve ads. LjDawson is a fantastic developer and really listens to his user base. Yes there are plenty of open source apps to use, but sometimes closed source is way more polished because the developer makes it their job to create the app. Living isn’t free. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Free as in freedom. Not free beer.
You lost this fight decades ago
And it’s a one-time fee.
I used Sync for Reddit for 11 years.
You might be forgetting that these same developers refused to simply put in a subscription to their reddit apps to continue them, instead closing their apps and telling everyone to move to lemmy because that’s where their app will be…and now adding huge subscription fees and one-off fees on a platform that doesn’t charge them to use their API lol.
Maybe I’m just cynical but this really seems like the dollar signs lit up in the reddit app devs eyes the second reddits API changes got announced.
Okay let’s do the math. According to here there is expected to be about 55.79 million folks using reddit daily. Let’s say a good 5 million folks use Sync. Now, reddit said it would charge $0.24 per 1000 API calls. You can find that here. Now 1000 calls isn’t much at all really. Let’s say those 5 million folks just 1000 API calls a day ( they wont’ actually use ONLY 1000 ). So we have 1000 * 5,000,000 * 0.24 = $1,200,000,000. That’s per day. Does that seem sustainable to you? Like if folks were using MUCH MUCH less I could see your point. But the fact is…they weren’t and reddit were being assholes about it. Now compare that to what he’s charging. $17 bucks for a year. Let’s break that down and compare it to what he’d be paying per day. Say all 5 million users were paying for Ultra. That’s 5,000,000 * 17 = $85,000,000. Divide that by 12 to get per month. 85,000,000/12 = $7,083,333 per month. Divide by 30 for average revenue per day. $7,083,333/30 = $236,111. Now tell me that even comes close to $1,200,000,000. Your logic is flawed. This doesn’t even account for fees and possible server costs.
Correct - 99% of those people will use nowhere near 1000 API calls a day. Each persons subscription only has to cover the costs of their API usage.
A $5/month subscription, at $0.24/1000 api calls, gives each user just under 21,000 API calls per month. Most people aren’t going to be doing anywhere close to that.
Sync doesn’t need any server costs. It’s not hosting an instance of Lemmy.
Also your maths is off by 1000x lol. The cost would be 1.2mil a day, not 1.2bil a day. You’re multiplying by 1000 for some reason, when the $0.24 already gets you 1000 api calls. So if all 5 million used 1000 calls per day, that’s 5 million x $0.24, which is $1.2mil.
They would actually use much more. See [here] ( https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/141mjij/lets_talk_about_those_api_calls/). Basically almost everything is an API request. Just loading a post and doing very little you have close to 33 requests. Even if my math was wrong it’s still way too much to pay for per day. Especially if folks are using much more that 1000 API calls per day.
No you don’t. You can open Reddit and open a post with ~3:
1 for getting the posts on your front page
1 for checking your messages.
1 for getting the comments on a post.
Where are you getting “close to 33 requests from”? That post that says they’ve done “very little” and used 33 calls? Ah yes, because everyone “checks who the mods are +1” every time they log in to reddit. Every single user is a mod who checks their modmail (+1).
BTW I know how API’s work, I’m a web developer. Most people will not go anywhere close to using 1000 API calls a day.
Okay so say I believe you. Why do you think a large majority of third party devs shuttered their projects they worked on for so long if it was just as easy as adding a subscription fee? Why didn’t more of them do it? I know of one that actually implemented a subscription. If folks were actually doing much less than 1000 API calls daily then you’d think most devs would have gone that way right?
They want people to move here instead where they can continue having zero costs and making millions of dollars.
It literally is as easy as adding a subscription. They know how many api calls the average person makes. Even if they put the subscription at $10 a month, they should have given people the option. It’s not like the users would run up absurd bills for them - the user would just get cut off in the extremely unlikely event that they use all their api calls. Hell why not make a tiered subscription for ranges from casual users to power users?
It’s hilarious that people jump all over the “the developers deserve to be paid” line, while saying Reddit don’t deserve to be paid for making these developers millionaires for free.
Can I ask why you think it isn’t as easy as adding a subscription fee?
You replied to the very answer to your question. Apps can still be businesses, not everything has to be free. There’s a bunch of free alternatives, this is just one of the paid ones.
They moved to lemmy because the fees on Reddit where exorbitant, and he’d have to raise the prices too much to keep same wage (Haven’t looked at the numbers). Afterall, it’s he’s app, and he’s to decide what wage he wants to keep working on it.
The boost developer that was at the heart of most of the uproar said that a subscription of $5/month would more than cover the API costs.
He made millions of dollars from Reddit, but drew the line at a $5/month subscription to compensate Reddit for making him a millionaire.
Oh alright, don’t know that much about it 🤷
No that’s not correct. sync for Reddit already had the ultra subscription. The problem was he would have had to up the price on the sub substantially to cover the Reddit API fees.
Less than $5 a month would cover it plus net him a few dollars profit off most people though.
Maybe a one time payment like for original sync, imagine supporting subscription services for a FOSS app 🤡🤡🤡
except sync isn’t FOSS, lemmy the fediverse link aggregator is 🤡🤡🤡
I’m obviously referring to lemmy when I say foss app, you think you look smart being a contrarian?
except lemmy isn’t an app, it’s a platform. sync is a lemmy app.
taken from the website:
“Lemmy is a selfhosted social link aggregation and discussion platform.”
so if anything it’s you who is the contrarian, lol. but I digress ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ignoring my argument twice in favour of nitpicking words, youre not a contrarian keep going
now that’s the good old Reddit I used to know
Reading that argument makes me feel like we’ve made it as a platform 👍
🤝
made a whole meme to defend nitpicking words, 3 replies so far nitpicking my words and ignoring my original argument like a true contrarian, keep going
could’ve worded it better
only one of those 2 is foss app the answer was obvious but the contrarian wanted an excuse to reply to me with the clown emoji back
deleted by creator
The one time payment for no ads used to support the original app for years and now it’s forced in a subscription model, the definition of greediness. I dont know why you support such behaviour and insult others on top of it, (oh the irony) but you do you.
Perhaps when you create your own app you can determine your own cost model.
“Dont judge politicians unless youre one of them” nice mindset bro
If you’d like to have a real conversation, I’m willing. If you want to pretend to argue things no one claimed, you’re on your own.
I tried an analogy since you didnt see the fallacy of your point, that failed too I guess, telling me dont judge the dev unless youve been in their shoes would mean u cant judge politicians either, I can and should have opinion on stuff regardless
Again, point me to where I said don’t judge. I didn’t. Judge away.
If you look at my post again, you’ll find that I tried to suggest that when you make your own app (and you should), you should decide on your cost model which sounds like it’ll be free. I eagerly await your release!
Not replying to my points and telling me I wait for your app is called an ad hominem, is this how you reply to people in real life?
So what is your point exactly? That you shouldn’t charge for software you develop to access a free network? There are plenty of free solutions for you.
politicians are meant to be judged devs are meant to be criticized just for improvement, you can just use another app
Sure? I only criticized ill stick to liftoff since theres only subscription option
he has literally said he will add an one time payment
It is already implemented in the newest update
current comments defend his current actions so no opinion on that until it happens.
PS: weird how the no ads option takes more time to develop than the subscription option with 10x features, INCLUDING the no ads one !
already he implemented it
it is still in beta, you can’t charge someone 30 euros for something that might fail or stop
I believe he has plans for that
Lemmy is funded by Patreon/Liberapay… Which are essentially subscriptions
their default model isnt based on ads like sync for lemmy
a third party client isnt as much work as the fediverse as u see it took him a month
3)ads used to be a one time payment for his old app, so the money was enough for him back then and now hes even richer so why do you excuse his greediness?
It took him a month because he adapted a code base he had been working on for a decade.
It’s not greediness to want to be able to pay your bills. This is his job. Also a single payment option has already been developed it’s just not made in live yet.
He was already paying his bills with the one time payment and now hes even richer, this is the definition of greediness. Also his future plans are irrelevant here I am judging his current actions and the OP comment defending them.
PS, weird how the no ads feature takes longer to develop than the recurring payment with 10 features, INCLUDING the no ads one!
Why do you assume he’s rich?
I said rich-ER buddy, how did you miss the one word? One time payment was enough when he had even less money back when he didnt have the reddit money yet so theres no excuse to hide no ads option behind a subscription model, especially for a foss platform, its not like its a reddit client and pays for api
Who cares if he is rich. He is making a good product and people want that product. He can charge whatever he wants, there is no point taking it personally. If you don’t want to pay, there is no one forcing you - you can even continue to use the app for free if you want.
Sure he can charge whatever, I’m just calling out his greediness idk what’s your point
If getting paid for the work you do that people are willing to pay for is greedy, then yes I suppose he is greedy, and so are everyone else who works for a living and try to up their earnings.
One-time payment is already implemented. Update in the Play Store if you cannot see it. The “Remove Ads” button is below the settings.
Sync for reddit also had a subscription model
Which didnt have the no ads offer, which is what my one time payment is referring to.
Sync for Lemmy v25 already has a one time purchase
Took closer to 12 years
@synceDD @misterbassman
Ad 2.
Tell me you know nothing about software development without telling me you know nothing about software development
Charging 2.5x more in the span of one month for the same feature is the essence of software development and people cheer u for it? Sheesh im in the wrong business