this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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Sync for Lemmy
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It’s just really weird to pay twenty dollars to not have ads on a platform that doesn’t inherently have ads - a platform that has been purposefully designed to avoid the needs for ads or the trappings of capitalism. To voluntarily reinfect yourself into that ecosystem seems at best weird, and at worst sort of a violation of what the fediverse is about.
I understand the sentiment. Most devs that release Lemmy apps do so as a side projects. They don't make money doing it. In fact, they actually losing money and time to work on their side projects. It's actually amazing how many apps we now have in just a short time.
That being said, Sync developer is one of a few dev who work on a lemmy app full time. This results in higher quality app, even though it's still in beta right now. But since he's literally doing this for a living, he'll need to make some money to continue his work. People was begging for him to make an app for Lemmy, and he actually does it. Whether he'll continue doing this or not will depends on whether he can make a living or not. And since the market for Lemmy apps is so small, there is no other choice but to charge a higher price to make the calculus works. For a lot of people that rooting for him, paying $20 or $17/year is no brainer if it means they get to have their favorite app working on Lemmy.
Sync isn't the type of app that needs to be worked on full time. It's an alternate interface of an existing website.
This price is too steep and I will either wait for it to go down or switch to another app when they become more full featured.
So I guess any new updates and features will just release on their own, huh?
The thing that set Sync and Apollo apart from a horde of other 3rd party reddit client apps was due to both dev was working full time on their app, and the quality of those apps prove it. The sync dev has been working full time on lemmy app in the past few weeks, and we can already see how good the app is compared o other lemmy apps.
If Apollo dev were also making a lemmy app, the price would be more or less the same simply due to small lemmy user base. The economy of scale simply is not there yet. The only way those devs can lower the price and still be able to sustain themselves is if lemmy gain a whole lot more total active users.
If there’s no other choice why is it the only app making that choice? I also don’t think that proprietary closed, profit incentivized systems are inherently better. The kbin PWA app is beyond sufficient.
I'm not saying there is no other choice. Lemmy core devs are paid by a grant to work on Lemmy full time for example. Other apps developers may have a different funding model (donation, or even out of their own pocket), but for Sync, the dev is a commercial app developer so he does what he do best: making a paid app.
Right, he’s taking a free service and profiting off of it instead of contributing to the project. He’s a leech and he’s being supported by fools.
How come selling an app is a leech when many people found his app valuable?
This platform needs money to keep going. If donations do not cover expenses, it will either find funding or just close. So, it may end up using "trappings of capitalism".
I was talking about servers, not client apps.
Regarding the app, yes, $20 is too expensive for just turning off ads. Moon Reader Pro asks $8 for an ad-free experience, and yet I think it's a bit too much for me. But it's a market, and demand will correct the price. If nobody pays $20 to disable ads, the devs can consider reducing the price, at least temporarily. So I don't see any problems here.
As for totally free apps, I consider them as a sort of gift. Some people are giving away the results of their labor for free, maybe because it's their hobby, or because of ideology, but definitely because they have spare time to work on their apps. But it can change, and active development can stop. The only thing able to motivate them to continue the work is a profit, allowing them to spend some time without sacrificing anything else. We can end up with ads, subscriptions, single-time payments, or maybe just donations. I think it's inevitable for active projects.
The market will definitely speak on this one since the platform itself isn’t monetized and there are tons of other options for those who don’t want to pay that much. If it ends up not being workable, it won’t be workable, and the model will need to adapt or fold.
I’d never pay that much for a phone app, personally, especially on android, because I’ve had apps that change dramatically to the point I no longer like/can use them. It’s a bit better on iOS because the devices are supported a lot longer with OS updates (literally the reason I switched after a lifetime with android flexibility - sick of apps not working and my phones not being supported officially for more than 2 years).
This isn’t to say I won’t pay for things I want and support - I did pay for a Plex lifetime subscription like 9 years ago ($100, it’s 120 now, and a large amount of paying for it is app access, but also managed home users so my close friends/family can be logged in to my account directly without impacting me in any way) because the value was well worth it after subscribing month to month to test it and using the free version for several years prior. The value for what I paid has increased substantially with new features and just simple longevity. The model seems to work well enough for what they provide, both to them and to their users. I can swap to another self-host if it falls apart, but in the 12 or so years I’ve been using it, only a small number of changes have negatively impacted me, and only slightly (tho I paid early, so if features were paywalled after being free, I’m not aware of it, tho they have made some previously paid things free, like plexamp). I can skip server updates and roll them back easily if it stops working with my OS, and my users wouldn’t know the difference for a long time.
This tends not to be the case with mobile apps because devices are constantly changing, and side-loading apks can be a challenge for your average person. It’s a lot less static overall than pc hardware, so app-breaking updates on older mobile hardware are way way more likely. I can’t afford new phones all the time, so that’s a problem to me.
I’m looking at the relative useful lifecycle of the software. If I can get maybe a couple years before my OS version isn’t properly supported to run the app anymore, and it’s difficult to fix without upgrading hardware or rooting and flashing (not something everyone can or wants to do), I probably don’t want it. I turned off automatic app updates for years because of this issue, but they stop working after a while anyway.
You have different uses for your phone than I do. I have paid that much for a phone app. Hell, i've paid 2.5 times that. Some video camera apps and music creation apps are defiantly higher than $20. And they are worth it. In the USA, this app is the cost of about 3-4 cups of chain coffee. Seems reasonable to me.
The beauty of the platform is that you do have choices. So enjoy your freedom of choice! Support something else! Have a great day!