I think now is a great time to remind everyone, like sync’s developer, Lemmy’s developers need to be paid too! The amount of time all the devs put into making lemmy exist, in my opinion, should be worth some of your money. If you can afford it, donating to the people who develop lemmy and/or the people keeping your home instance up will accelerate the incredible growth of lemmy!
That’s how things should work honestly. Those that can chip in, should. A beer every so often goes a long way. It’s honestly something I barely notice in my finances too. This time it goes to something I believe in instead of a twitch sub lol.
Don’t get me started on twitch subs. Supporting a creator you like is fine, but spending 100s of dollars on gift subs is so stupid.
Twitch looking at their top creators leaving for other platforms.
Increasing our revenue share, unilaterally, should fix this.
Eli5 gift subs?
Subs = subscriptions.
A sub on Twitch gives you a badge and special emojis on your subbed channel (streamer).
You also have the option to gift (randomly) 1, 5, 25, 50, 100 subs to random followers (users).
A sub costs $5 in the US, you can gift 100 subs ($500) if you want to.
“Supporting creators is fine, but supporting them more is so stupid”
Ok LUL.
My guess is they mean in the sense of “support creaters as you’d like, but don’t throw all your money into it just for them to pay attention to you for a second”
Well then they probably should’ve said that instead of saying something unrelated to the point ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Is that what gift subs are? I’ve never understood that. Is it like a tip?
Subs are kinda like tip, except you get something in return. Usually its emotes you can use on any stream on twitch. Some streamers can make other stuff like sub only discord channel but its optional.
Gift subs are exactly the same except you give the benefits to some other chaters.
Yep! The developer of Connect for Lemmy is getting caffeinated on a regular basis by me. It’s a perfect fit for the RIF gap in my heart. ;)
He/She(?) is doing an awesome job and it’s amazing how far this app has come in just a few short weeks. I am trying to keep the dev motivated as much as possible, for sure!
My only gripe is that it’s not open source, but that is OK.
“They”
Agreed, I started donating to Lemmy as soon as I switched, and I’m happy to pay for sync too. I want to support this ecosystem.
I’m sure that everyone who was raging at Sync over the last few days, stating that all software should be FOSS have all made significant contributions to the Lemmy devs.
FOSS is pretty bloody great, and one of the greatest things about the modern IT industry. But FOSS doesn’t pay a mortgage.
To be clear: I have contributed to Lemmy, and will likely pay a lifetime fee for Sync sooner or later.
I installed Sync, threw $16 LJ’s way for putting in the work to convert it to work with Lemmy, and then uninstalled lol (commenting from Thunder). I plan on continuing to use FOSS clients for Fediverse stuff, but am happy there’s a healthy variety of open and closed source clients for everyone to pick and choose from.
FOSS doesn’t pay a mortgage.
The rabid “it should be free” crowd here acts like we live in a post scarcity utopia where everything is roses and they deserve whatever they like on demand. The majority of users on this site wouldn’t give a penny to help save their instance from dying.
Reality is that FOSS is basically never given donations (donate to your instance hosts people) and relying on donations is a guarantee that you’ll run a charity at a loss.
Software development is hard work that only a small group of people know how to do (for now: I still hope it’s like 50% of the population in the future but…) And to make independent software full time is a risky endeavor.
You’d have to be off your fucking gord to make FOSS software full time and expect to stay above the poverty line.
Good on you for supporting Sync and Lemmy. I do the same and plan to continue doing so… Cause I want the bad place to Digg it’s own grave with their greed. But that’ll only happen if we’re crowd funding our FOSS.
OP: Please try and support instance admins and Lemmy devs
Sync fans in the comments: Yes, I bought Sync and love it
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If all the big instances go away through lack of financial support, they’re going to find out they paid $130 to swap Sync memes with the 3 people left.
And then the dev will probably pitch in funding to instances or host.
They might contribute to an existing instance sure, but I doubt they’d host. There’s no real financial incentive for the profit driven to host a Lemmy instance unless they charge for membership and I doubt even Sync users are naive enough to pay twice for something.
Lemmy.ml is og instance hosted by lemmy devs
Who shutdown sign ups during the influx cause they couldn’t handle it. So don’t expect it to last if all the other instances fail.
Fair enough. That is what I meant for the record. It’s just a business cost at that point.
Sync fans in the comments: Yes, I bought Sync and love it
This is what people said me that would not happens. But, I knew people will think by paying for Sync they will pay for Lemmy (devs and instances).
Ironic because it’s literally the same situation that Reddit was going through that caused the migration to Lemmy in the first place
I left because of how reddit treated the 3rd part app Devs, suddenly forcing them to cancel subscriptions halfway through the year. (They could have given the Devs a heads up, but chose not to.) I left because of the libel that was being spread about a dev. For me, it wasn’t that they wanted to charge money to use reddit, it’s how they went about it that made me leave and not return.
Of course, they also forgot about blind people and moderating tools. They then kicked many mods for voicing their opinion and/or participating the blackout, even if the subreddit in question was in agreement with them.
I don’t see Sync doing any of that, so please speak for yourself on why the migration happened.
Agree. The service needs money and if it’s used hours a week… it may deserve some monthly cash.
But spez. Spez had to spez. I try not to click reddit answers on Google now. Someone else can get that traffic/click.
See it’s funny because when I browse everything it’s basically 50% memes from existing lemmy users about not liking sync.
Which would be massively relevant if I was talking about ‘everything’. I’m talking about this post, so it’s not.
How do you think I got here
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I don’t care
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Y’all just seething bc others are enjoying things. This is just cringe. This is not a zero sum game. You can donate to lemmy devs/instance devs/fav. app devs and whatever else you like too.
And let’s not pretend this is new. You could see a lot of memmy users being excited about their app too. I don’t know what the hell they are talking about. But I’m glad they have an app they like that much.
Just. Let. People. Enjoy. Things.
i dont think theres anything wrong with sync enjoyers loving their app but i have to agree that the iap money would be better spent on actually keeping instances alive
This is such a bad take. By the same logic, the time you spend scrolling through Lemmy would have been better spent serving the homeless in the soup kitchen or sweeping the streets clean. But yet here you are. Why?
Let’s face it, the “IAP money” you referred to has always been there, Sync dev found a way (and has the balls) to monetize his work to a pretty big extent. And only now are you all sour grapes about it. If Lemmy instances are so desperate for money why didn’t they make an equally big effort to monetize? On the flip side, if money isn’t such a big issue why do you care if Sync is monetizing?
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The last I read, the instance was already fully-funded through the end of the year.
Why is the notion that the instance is going under something lemmings keep bringing up? Yes… I understand the model. But it is fully funded - or was. Why are people acting like the instance is about to fail?
Should we start rumors that the instance is about the fail? Or… are recent facts useful, here?
Yes, there are other instances, but the preponderance of Sync users joined lemmy.world.
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Makes sense. No one is entitled to the labor of others.
Applies here, too.
If no one else is reading this, something is fishy with votes. No… not preoccupied with the vote. Preoccupied with what it may indicate. It is, as you’ve indicated, stale.
It’s not either or. But I have now stopped donating because y’all can’t get off this topic.
Hate the super-rich, not people with enough money left over at the month that they can afford a nicer way to interact with lemmy as intended - ad free.
That the server needs people with extra cash to support it is exceedingly valid. That’s why I had been donating until literally 10 minutes ago.
I’m not subsidizing people who feel entitled to: Free shit Using free shit to tell others how they should spend (Acting like my money is theirs)
It’s a simple boundaries issue that so many on Lemmy don’t seem to comprehend.
When I stopped my donation, there was “other” then a box to say why. I filled it in. It’s just one donation that stopped, but who knows, there could be more.
I have now stopped donating because y’all can’t get off this topic.
When I stopped my donation, there was “other” then a box to say why. I filled it in. It’s just one donation that stopped, but who knows, there could be more.
You stopped supporting the server you use because some other people (on different servers) commented about another topic entirely? I don’t understand the logic behind that. Are you under the impression that someone posting from lemmy.ca is secretly the maintainer of lemmy.world? What’s the logical connection here for you?
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Thank you for asking and a thoughtful response.
I’m (hopefully obviously) not opposed to supporting lemmy.world or the devs. I don’t expect free stuff.
I have run into more than a couple people who have needed to opine and troll because they have strong feeling about people enjoying Sync.
The lemmyverse has at least one starting point and maybe I’m still learning. What I see is a place begun in a somewhat communist, left leaning, pro-FOSS standpoint. I suspect that demographic is inclined to thought processes I can’t grok.
I understand class resentment (I do; I’m not wealthy (at all)). I understand fatigue with people geeking out over an app that underwhelms a person of other tastes (or means).
That said, I see your distinction. One of the virtues of lemmy is that it’s a loose federation. But people from a variety of servers have argued in poor faith (or just not seen what they’re doing).
I expect disagreement. It’s part of why I’m here: to hear well reasoned counter points and to learn. But it’s difficult to say lemmy.world has been happy about the newcomers. That I’ve seen anyhow.
If making the point that allies are being alienated in ways that matter to us all, helps make a point that we could be friends, then I’ll make that point.
I did end my subscribed support that would have outpaced my Sync spend within a year (you can math that). Lemmy, right now, has an unwelcoming vibe that’s not even a little background. It is foreground. And problematic if this experiment is going to work.
all i said is better spent, not that you’re not allowed to spend money on sync; and you talk about it like you’re forced to pay to browse lemmy without ads when it’s sync that has ads and not lemmy?
Strange comment
I happily supported the dev. Just as I had happily supported the server.
OP mentions sync, you mention sync, I mention sync (eww thats crass), you mention sync… first line comments mention sync in frustrated tones. Are you going to lecture them too?
I know the misrepresent-and-fatigue strategy of argumentation and I’m not going to play. I’ve seen it a surprising amount here on Lemmy and you’re doing it now.
If honesty or integrity don’t mean a lot to you, I’d recommend turning over the soap box.
On topic, again: you, along with others, have persuaded me to cease donations but I don’t retreat like you may hope.
This bastian of class resentment is going to have to adapt or close. If everyone here is what I’m seeing, I hope the person running the server has deep pockets. Or I guess everyone keeps instance hopping until everyone realizes it’s not sustainable and instances aren’t spun up.
I’m not wealthy, in the least, but I don’t expect things for free. Lemmy has taught me I should. I’ll apply that to the servers and development.
Womp womp
You’re absolutely correct. Anyone can enjoy any app they like and either pay for it or not.
But coming into a thread about ways to ensure Lemmy gets the support it needs to develop and instances get the support they need to keep going to tell everyone how much you love your app is infantile.
The OP called people out for using that specific app. Getting mad that they’re not taking it lying down? That is infantile.Edit: this is inaccurate. Rephrased below
Here’s what OP said:
“With all this talk about Sync pricing…I think now is a great time to remind everyone, like sync’s developer, Lemmy’s developers need to be paid too! The amount of time all the devs put into making lemmy exist, in my opinion, should be worth some of your money. If you can afford it, donating to the people who develop lemmy and/or the people keeping your home instance up will accelerate the incredible growth of lemmy!”
How on Earth do you come to the conclusion that that is in any way calling Sync users out?
Fair point. You know as you read through comments of a thread, you sometimes allow the original message to meld with the messages of most comments? I just did that, and should not have.
Let me rephrase to “because of the sync mention by the OP, there is a preponderance of lecturing coming from the FOSS purist community. It is infantile to expect no response to that”.
I have to assume you’re referring to things I’ve said as it would be pretty stupid to expect me to be answerable for things other people have said.
So, you let me know where I’ve made any comments in the entire thread that are based on Sync being a for-profit app and my lectures about the desirability of FOSS purism and I’ll be happy to talk about them.
But coming into a thread about ways to ensure Lemmy gets the support it needs to develop and instances get the support they need to keep going to tell everyone how much you love your app is infantile.
This is what I was responding to.
Let me make a list of things that would be “stupid” to take from this.
- That you are answerable for what others have said.
- That you are among those that were prodding Sync users.
Here’s the message that I got from what you said
- Standing up for yourself is infantile
Feel free to tell me why my paraphrasing was inaccurate. That’s the only useful direction this conversation can go from here. Not whatever the fuck direction that was that you just tried to take it in.
Let me make a list of things that would be “stupid” to take from this.
That you are answerable for what others have said.
Then why did you ask me to justify OP’s post?
That you are among those that were prodding Sync users.
Then why did you try and make me answerable for what other people were saying?
Not whatever the fuck direction that was that you just tried to take it in.
It’s pretty simple. You said:
“because of the sync mention by the OP, there is a preponderance of lecturing coming from the FOSS purist community. It is infantile to expect no response to that”
And clearly expected me to have some sort of ownership of, or participation in, that lecturing. I then pointed out to you that I didn’t believe I had either but if you could find an example of me doing so I’d be happy to talk about it.
Feel free to tell me why my paraphrasing was inaccurate
Because it’s not what I said. I said:
“You’re absolutely correct. Anyone can enjoy any app they like and either pay for it or not…But coming into a thread about ways to ensure Lemmy gets the support it needs to develop and instances get the support they need to keep going to tell everyone how much you love your app is infantile.”
I’m not sure saying someone(s) coming into a thread which is nothing to do with Sync as a piece of software and proceeding to hijack it to be about Sync is infantile behaviour is directly equivalent to ‘standing up for yourself is infantile’. They weren’t standing up for themselves, they’d made an error in understanding what the thread was about and when informed what it was about got annoyed and asked why they ‘couldn’t just use what we want’ or ‘why do you care?’ when as far as I can tell nobody (certainly not me) told them they couldn’t use whatever app they wanted to, its simply not what this thread was about.
Sync dev wanting something worth for the all the work they’re doing is fine imo. You can tell he put a lot of effort into the app.
The sync cult however seem to be as annoying as they were on reddit. They are like this when we discuss anything about sync’s pricing even on non sync communities.
“I’m so happy I can buy sync again”
“Sync is the best”
“No other 3PA can compare to it in my experience”
This is one of the few times I feel like “nobody asked” applies.
Conversely, all the memes trying to shit on sync by people who never used it or even tried it, who asked?
right? “sync users never shut up”
meanwhile my feed:
edit: and three posts down:
we get it you don’t like sync, I’m just trying to find content in an app i enjoy 🤷♂️
Ohh, that’s mine. Sorry if my post annoyed you, i’m just trying my best adding content to lemmy. Funny enough, i’m really to throw money at ultra sub because i love reddit sync, but seeing the pricing and no regional price while the app still in beta state, i’d rather not, for now.
App is nice though, feels like home.
lol it’s all good 😁 I don’t mind the posts at all
There is regional pricing though, look at the comments under posts about removing ads. Some are paying the equivalent of $15, others €18 to €23.
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Pretty sure my region is where my Google account is set up rather than my instance, and I’m at the upper end of the prices I saw. Thanks for the head start in the wrong direction though.
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Personally I find both sides a bit grating, but moreso the anti-Sync crowd lol.
I used Sync for Reddit and paid for lifetime, but after a while I found that I liked Infinity better, so I switched. I’m now using Infinity for Lemmy and probably won’t use Sync for Lemmy, but people who are using Sync (and paid for it)? Good for them. No need to tell them, “Haha you’re a sucker for paying for something when there are free alternatives!!”, you lose absolutely nothing by other people using Sync or other proprietary apps.
Let people use what they want, jfc.
Q on infinity, is it possible to hide/collapse comments? When I click on a comment, it just shows/hides the toolbar. That’s what’s stopping me from using at the moment.
On infinity a long press will collapse all comments replying to that comment. With the “Fully collapse comment” setting enabled (under Interface->comment) it will collapse that comment too. The setting “Swap tap and long press in comments” (under Gestures & buttons) will make it so tapping has that effect instead. In the comment toolbar, to the left of the save comment button there is an up arrow that also triggers the collapse of the comment.
Thank you!
Edit: back on infinity with this change :)
Damn these people being happy their favorite app is on Lemmy.
Seriously why do you care ?
Also, the reality is not that the sync cult is too vocal it’s that they represent a solid chunk of the overall user base.
And also the fact that on Lemmy there is not much content as of now so minor things can become events.
I’m a bit salty about sync’s pricing especially because I already bought the ads removal when sync was on reddit. And I feel like this is not a new code base so I should at least get a minor discount.
There are all kinds of sync users, stop oversimplifying things and spreading stereotypes. Just let people enjoy their few days of being happy they can browse Lemmy in their comfort zone.
The sync cult however seem to be as annoying as they were on reddit.
This is very weird for me because I was very active on reddit for many years and was subscribed to the android and sync subreddits. Barely ever seen any comments or posts about sync. If you had a lot of interaction about sync on reddit, I have to believe it’s because you were looking for that type of content. Or maybe you had a very narrow selection of subreddits. I don’t know.
Seriously why do you care ?
Not the person you were replying to but it does get a bit much when a thread isn’t about Sync - like this one for example, which is trying to draw attention to funding Lemmy development and instance sustainability - and then it gets hit with people talking about how much they love Sync and they’re happy to pay for it.
You realize this branch started with someone adding 0 content about supporting the server or lemmy?
I’m not sure if this is your first time using threaded conversation based software but that’s really not how a thread works.
Is that not the first response to OP on this branch?
Please see my previous response.
Is this a point about using the word, “branch.”
Or you pointing out that conversation organically drifts? Or something else?
Again this is organic. A large influx of sync users started being active on Lemmy. It will fade out in a matter of days.
I understand the sentiment but honestly feel like people are creating unnecessary drama. This is just a temporary trend just like we had days and days of beans meme which was also mildly annoying after 5/6 days.
True, drama hits everywhere, but it can easily be avoided in a post about the importance of supporting lemmy development and instance sustainability by not going on that post to comment how much you personally love a for-profit app. Or any app in fact.
My guy go read the threads title
My guy read the actual post.
They are both the submission. Unfortunately OP made sync’s cost part of the topic and the pivot point into a reasonable ask.
Headlines matter and cannot be completely separated from the entirety of the message.
Y’know, most people are capable of nuance and ascertaining meaning from context.
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Seriously why do you care ?
Hmm, I’m not sure how much I actually do. It’s mostly these posts coming to my feed automatically and this is like the main lemmy topic today.
The sync cult however seem to be as annoying as they were on reddit.
This is very weird for me because I was very active on reddit for many years and was subscribed to the android and sync subreddits. Barely ever seen any comments or posts about sync.
Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t actually have called them a cult after thinking through more. But I do find some of what they do annoying like what I mentioned before.
If you had a lot of interaction about sync on reddit, I have to believe it’s because you were looking for that type of content. Or maybe you had a very narrow selection of subreddits. I don’t know.
Sync was mostly drama free but there were two things I noticed on reddit.
-
Sometimes when free version users come to troubleshoot an issue, premium users would try to convince them to buy the pro version to support the developer without offering a solution(most likely because they can’t offer a solution). I was in many different third party apps and this was absurd to me. I don’t recall seeing anything like this in any of the other third party app subreddits. A reason behind this might be the large userbase. Sync has a much larger userbase than most third party android apps. Also, sync dev and the moderators were chill. It was just comments from random users.
-
The developer once released a major update which many old time users didn’t like. They raged to the point that the sync dev took a pretty long break to the point people were wondering if sync was abandoned or not. Even his own moderators lost contact with him. I wasn’t even subscribed to the sync subreddit when this happened and l learned of it like a few weeks or maybe a month or two later from I think r/androidapps or a similar subreddit where people were discussing their favourite third party apps.
So, nope. Sync isn’t drama free completely and my selection of subreddits definitely weren’t narrow(I had to make multiple custom feeds at the end).
I want to add again that I’m satisfied with the sync dev’s work and decision. It’s not wrong to want to profit from your work.
-
I’m a bit salty about sync’s pricing especially because I already bought the ads removal when sync was on reddit. And I feel like this is not a new code base so I should at least get a minor discount.
I am in the similar boat. I feel that I left reddit in solidarity with the 3rd party app developers. And, I was expecting the price to reflect some discount for the people who left in solidarity.
I also feel that ad removal is a in principle as most people on lemmy would be using tools to already block ads. I am willing to pay, but I am hardly inconvenienced by the ads.
And right there is the problem. I bought sync for reddit so why should I have to pay for lemmy. I mean the developer had to do work to rewrite for the lemmy api.
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inaccuracies and hypocritical takes are being thrown around regarding FOSS.
Oh wow that grinds my gears too. Hopefully those takes are out of pure ignorance and lack of information rather than actually believing FOSS is not secure.
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The second bad take lmao. Is this actually from lemmy?
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Welp, that was something to read
Yes, most people are dumb
Did somebody asked your opinion?
No. But here we are. Reading about the “sync cult” whatever that is.
So… Let’s extend that courtesy to everyone, all right?
Because a “nobody asked about your opinion” stance is a sure fire way to end any discussion platform. Like lemmy.
What I do think that Mr. Dawson should do is direct a percentage of that sweet sync income at lemmy.world and the lemmy devs. That would end or at least lessen this discussion.
I’d normally agree. I don’t really like when someone responds with “nobody asked” to me or someone else.
But I really don’t think a comment such as “I’m glad I can buy sync again” is appropriate for posts such as this. OP came to remind us to donate to lemmy devs as one of the main topics of lemmy is about sync now. The OP and the users who clicked this post didn’t come to see comments like those from those specific sync users.
As for calling them a cult, I apologize for that.
Again, I also agree “nobody asked” isn’t really a healthy way to proceed but those comments really do feel irrelevant. I have no idea what their purpose is here.
No need to apologise for anything bud, this is the Internet where Linus rants daily! We all do!
I understand you’re fed up with all the sync bs. I just think we have to try to turn this in/to a way everybody gets better from it.
The reddit refugees are happy because “this feels just like home”, they(we) don’t care it’s 20 bucks!
The og Foss crowd grumpingly :) accepts the higher amount of contributions which stems from that. (this is the point we’ve to drive home to ljdawson(sync dev)
And we all benefit because the fediverse grows and keeps growing, more content, more everything. Shiny beautiful future, end to war and world hunger, beginning of a new era where humanity reaches for the stars or dies because of a rogue AI or because of a runaway greenhouse effect.
Wait. No, not those last ones. It should have a happy ending.
Anyway: Everybody is happy. More or less. :) *for a while. *
The “everything ever should be FOSS” cult keeps prodding people that disagree with them, gets angry when those folks argue back, then calls them a cult instead because they “won’t shut up”.
You got a lot more in common with MAGAs than you fuckin realize, damn.
(General support for FOSS is not a cult)
I had to search for what MAGA is.
Make America great again?
I’m not american.
No one asked.
So what is lemmy then?
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I call it, “subscription fatigue”.
Work bought me an iPad. It was my first foray into iOS.
I’m not sure what the app store was like before, but I couldn’t find a single app that didn’t have a subscription plan. Even a simple SSH client built using open source libraries wants $6.00/mo.
I totally understand why people groan and do a face palm any time they see yet another app wanting to charge them monthly, hoping that once there you’ll forget that you’ve subscribed.
The only reason that I paid for Sync is that I’ve seen the dev interactions and their dedication to the project. I would never ever pay for a software subscription from any of the big players. For a single person setup, I’m more than happy to do it. I donate to my favorite podcasts and my favorite designers from Thingiverse.
Late stage capitalism and the rent-seeking economy sucks. But becoming accustomed to individuals paying other individuals is one of the things we’re going to have to do to make it suck less.
From the developer’s point of view, subscription makes more sense as people benefit from continual development and updates, and the dev continually gets paid for their time.
I paid $1 or $2 for sync pro like 9 years ago and back then, it took a lot to get me to pay for apps. The more I use the app, the more I got for my money per hour spent using the all. But the more work the dev did after he got my money, the less he gets paid for his labor, per hour.
Nowadays, $1-2 feels like a steal for an app, especially for a one time payment. I haven’t paid for ad-free or ultra yet, but I intend to because he’s shown a long history of listening to his user base and updating/fixing things in a timely manner, which that type of service also is something I value as a customer, even if it isn’t a tangible benefit.
I’m one of those with subscription fatigue but that’s not a problem with sync because you don’t have to subscribe. You can just pay the one time ad-free option and that’s all right with me. I honestly don’t know what’s going on with the vitriol against sync on lemmy. I think most people don’t realise that nobody needs to subscribe to sync, you can use it for free with ads OR you pay the one time fee and have it ads free forever without the other subscription features.
Termius?
I might pay for their subscription if it was like $2 a year. Cloud sync is not worth $120 a year.
I only really need it when I’m transferring devices. Oddly enough, they also seem to give you a free one week trial whenever you do so.
I get that they’re targeting enterprise customers, but they could just charge a smaller fee for individuals and go hard on companies who are skirting the rules.
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I don’t subscribe as a rule these days.Subscription fatigue is a real thing but I do make one time payments to regularly used services or apps across the year. I guess it’s like tipping in that respect, I do it when I feel I should.
For Sync, the subscription seemed steep for an app for a platform I’m still only starting to use and don’t use anywhere near Reddit levels (by design I might add) plus the one time payment seems similarly steep. I bought the pro for Reddit about 2 years before Reddit went full ham and was ready to spend the £8 of Google credit I have on it again if it turned out I used it/lemmy more than I do.
The issue I found is that feeding that back on anything like this hit the cult wall and you just get a lot of angry posting about you being cheap or just use the ads etc. Hell, you can see the same posts even in this thread which is only tangentially related to that whole quagmire. I had hoped that lemmy would be less vitriolic and more discussion based even on these kinds of things but I guess people are just tribalistic regardless.
I agree that subscription fatigue is a huge thing, and I avoid services as a rule of thumb unless there are real reasons for the subscription, ie ongoing usage based costs.
That said, I view $2 a month as a reasonable subscription cost, and if Reddit had charged that I would have happily paid it to keep bacon reader. It’s only the one time payment cost that is very steep ($99).
I chip in $5/mo for lemmy.world to help pay to keep it ad free and running
Yeah i think cult mentality is the problem. If someone doesn’t want to pay or cannot pay, it’s their choice/circumstances. If they don’t like sync’s pricing and wanna stick to FOSS apps, it’s their choice. I don’t like to see people pushing around others for their choice of what they think is the best.
Good bloody grief! How did a reminder to support Lemmy devs and hosts get hijacked by Sync fans? Sync is a completely different topic.
Yeah, maybe shouldn’t have mentioned sync in my post. I was just doing as a joke though.
It’s a fine segue. I’m just surprised at how many people jumped at the chance to talk about a different topic and ignore your actual message.
Thanks for the reminder, BTW. As soon as I find a permanent home, I’ll add them to the donations list.
Wait wait, what is segue ?? 😂 in my language it means “a wanking session” lmao
LOL! That’s… disturbing… in this case. Funny image, though. And perhaps appropriate given how excited Sync makes some of its users. ;>
It means a smooth transition from one thing to another. In this case, using Sync to introduce the discussion about supporting devs and instances.
It means transition in English 😅
Pronounced the same as Segway. link to hear it
Thanks TIL
What a peculiar coincidence…
You are? It’s quite the hot topic right now.
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Sync users are annoyed getting blasted with FOSS this and that. Other client users do not need to ridicule Sync fans. Or behave like houlier than thou and teach Sync users how to spend rheir money.
They are free to stay closed-source proprietary but prople have the right to voice their opinions.
That is not holier than thou.
The title literally references Sync…if it didn’t, your point would be stronger but I understand the spirit.
It does, but only as a contrast to point out that others in the ecosystem also deserve support. OP’s post is literally a reminder that, without devs and hosts, Sync would have no reason to exist. It’s about the devs and hosts.
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It appears to be hijacked by FOSS fans from what I see.
All I know is I’m already sick of this anti-FOSS users narrative.
I don’t even get how someone can be anti-foss. I feel like it’s a necessity until a critical mass adopts the platform.
We must be looking at different threads, unless Sync is FOSS.
Yeah. If you got 100$ to spare you should be giving it lemmy instead of sync.
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Excuse me. I’m trying to make people feel bad here.
The difference is that some users have been using sync for a decade and using Lemmy for only a month. So it’s a lot easier to mentally justify supporting a developer who you’ve been benefiting from for so long.
I have also donated to my local instance, I really hope to see it all grow together.
The problem is that, for that decade, Sync has been benefiting from reddit, and now Lemmy. And reddit/Lemmy were the ones footing the majority of the operating costs so that Sync could be useful.
While obviously not a perfect example, think of it as letting your friend stay in your spare room. And then they decide to run a business out of that room and you have customers coming at all hours of the day.
This is increasingly a concern with the modern internet. All of those super popular streamers and youtubers? They are profiting off the content of game devs and other youtubers (ironically, it is the hot tub streamers who are stealing the least content). And plenty of content creators have come out and talked about how they increasingly hate “Reaction” content (Hasan getting special mention for just playing full videos to his chat while he has a piss break).
I am glad Sync is a product people feel is worth paying for. Not my thang, but it doesn’t need to be. But… let’s just say that if the only thing to come out of the reddit debacles over the past few months were “Third party apps need to serve ads or pay for expensive API keys” I would probably actively not care.
Just to be clear. I very much feel that creators deserve to get paid, even if they build on top of the work of others. Maybe less so people who just stream content with no comment while they take a shit but, generally speaking, even just interacting with chat while you play a round of Valorant is “transformative” in my book.
But it DOES suck how many developers, services, and creators are more or less getting screwed over in the interest of “exposure”.
Reddit has benefitted from Sync, and other 3rd party apps, way more than Sync has benefitted from Reddit.
It’s less clear cut with Lemmy, which is supposed to evolve an ecosystem of free tools, so it might be that some day Sync will be benefitting from Lemmy more than Lemmy from Sync… but for now, Lemmy is relatively bare bones, like what Reddit used to be 15 years ago, so any 3rd party app with extra features is still a good thing.
Fortunately, Lemmy has no incentive to go closed source, like Reddit did (let’s not forget Reddit used to be open source while it was convenient for them, then it wasn’t).
Genuine question:
Why did reddit benefit from Sync but Lemmy doesn’t? In both cases, it is a third party app (with premium options or ads that support Sync and not the service it is engaging with) that greatly increases utility for “power users”. So that more or less means that it provides “exposure” by encouraging power users to make the content that casual users will come back to the site for.
And there is the argument that that actually could be bad if the product has no viable monetization strategy but user count keeps increasing but… yeah.
Sync is $20 to remove ads no? Where is it $100?
Update: nevermind I see it here for sync ultra
The 100$ is very much a premium tier with nice to have features. The ad free version is around 20$, which is still steep but you’re paying for lifetime ads.
you’re paying for lifetime ads
You don’t need to pay for that, just go to Reddit. Free unlimited lifetime ads! 😉
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Can you not post from Sync presently?
Yeah, no posting yet. That’s my big issue with Sync on Lemmy so far. Monetization was implemented and there were multiple price increases all before some of the most basic features of Lemmy are even on the app. When everything else is already fully functional and free, it just becomes a harder sell than it was on Reddit.
One change I’d recommend is some sort of “Pay what you want” option for a subscription. If he did a minimum of $2 a month, it would be about the same cost but would make users feel like they have more agency over how much they pay. While I’m sure many people would just pay the minimum, giving users more choice will just lead to people who want to chip in more. We’ve all paid $5 for a humble bundle, but I’m sure a few of us have also chipped in $100 if it was the right charity or cause.
Yeah, the pricing doesn’t match the available feature. I feel like if he price it accordingly to the release and the set of feature, it will fare much better. Like right now he could price it lower, then later on when in full release, raise the price, and then after a while raise the price again.
“Coming Soon” is what pops up at the bottom.
You can comment, just not post
Right. I should have clarified. You can’t create a post in a community yet.
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Personally, I think the app is absolutely fine without paying for the subscription. I really don’t see too many ads. I get an average of one ad for every two refreshes of the feed when scrolling through, and none of them have been obtrusive. It’s certainly night and day when compared to the ads in the official Reddit app.
The people who develop lemmy get paid to do so, as stated by iirc Dessalines themselves.
I would put donating to those running instances at the highest priority, because without servers, we have nothing.
That grant is coming to an end, if it hasn’t already.
They get paid from an NLnet grant, but it’s only for specific features (not bug fixing) and it’s not a living wage
The https://feddit.de hoster does not take any donations. The person stated 2 months ago that it was around 10 euros per month to host it… Probably a bit higher now…
It’s more than €10 unless it’s on a raspberry pi. Lemmy.world is over €100
Lemmy.world is over €100
from just the memory numbers last time i saw server graphs, it’s gotta be at least an order of magnitude more than that.
Iirc it was €180 about for the EPYC host. That was months ago but it had headroom.
How to prevent it from becoming a Wikipedia situation then with server owners begging for money constantly?
Accept the instance owners will be forced to turn to shittier methods of income, like ads.
Spreading the load over many small instances will likely prevent this. It can be quite cheap to host lemmy well, but everything is expensive when you scale up 1000x
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You don’t have to explain if you can’t! Don’t feel bad. Supporting yourself should definitely come first. Hope you are doing alright.
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Like every open source projects, you can donate with money or your time. Both are equally valuable. Promoting the project, helping new users, heck, even being pleasant and help fostering positive environment in the fediverse so new users feel welcomed is actually very valuable (especially given current reputation of fediverse citizens being especially harsh to new users).
I don’t get where this reputation came from? I’ve had more positive interactions on Lemmy in the last month than I had on Reddit in the last 10 years, literally. I feel like this is the internet equivalent of Iceland, everyone must think it is a frozen hellscape, but then you get here and it is actually a really nice place to be.
To add to this, it can even be as simple as reporting bugs you find, whether that be with the Lemmy code itself or a client you’re using.
And that’s totally fine. That’s the beauty of the internet, not everybody has to pitch in, and if you can’t you shouldn’t feel bad about it. There was a time when I was a starving college student and was doing the five finger discount on a very regular basis. We’re glad you’re here regardless.
My egalitarian FOSS is showing lol
Yeah, I do wish there was some form of regional pricing going on. Doesn’t seem to be the case if the prices I’m seeing in my (also third world) country are anything to go by.
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You’re absolutely right, major brain fart on my part to assume that’s what the person I responded to meant
According to his update I believe he’ll be working on regional prices this week
FYI if you still want to show support, librepay allows you to give a “symbolic donation” of just $0.01 a week, or $0.52 a year
This is my biggest problem with it. I have no issue with Sync charging. I have an issue with Sync charging and not passing anything on to the developers of Lemmy.
My instance’s owner has a Patreon. I give there. I definitely recommend that others do the same.
I don’t think the Lemmy devs are getting that much either from funding. I feel like an attitude of supporting all tiers that make this place work will be necessary.