Not hating on open source, just let people use what fits their expectations and needs and stop deterring them with gatekeeping :P
UX = user experience
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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I am currently using Sync, and while I agree that the UX is better I can also understand why so many on the Fediverse are against similar apps. They are here because corporations have ruined every other good thing on the internet and non-FOSS is very much associated with big corporations. While I would prefer that Sync were FOSS I also see the reality of Western society and how untenable creating an app would be without some kind of ad revenue. A majority of people are notoriously stingy and donations can only get you so far.
No shade to anyone who uses Sync, but the egregious thing to me is the price. Sync isn’t making the content, just like Reddit wasn’t, and they’re setting the price at a level that it feels like that’s what you’re paying for.
Any comparison to other software makes this pretty clear. If it were $4.99, I’d say that’s relatively fair, but charging 1/3rd of the cost of a new video game for an app that took less than 1/3rd of the resources to produce seems a bit absurd.
People can spend their money however they want, but I also don’t think it’s completely uncalled for to criticize the company for what appears to be price gouging.
The one time payment to remove ads is 20$.
People are really overblowing the price. As other ppl have mentioned, lemmy is less than a fraction of the user base of reddit.
The 4x price increase isn't crazy. Devs need to make a living. I talk to Lj every now and then on Discord. Dude has been scrambling since the Reddit shut down to get out a working product. I really don't think it's price gouging to spend 20$ for an app I'll be using for maybe 30-mins to an hour almost every single day.
There is the ad revenue too though. If it is impossible to make a living and work on these apps with either reasonable app pricing or no ads, then why is Sync the only app for Lemmy with these strings attached?
I just don’t understand what makes Sync significantly different or more expensive to produce than every other app available right now.
Sync is a "professional" app. The others are mostly hobbyists. That's the ultimate difference. Same as with Apollo. You had a bunch of open source reddit clients, but a hobby piece of software will seldom outshine a professional product. Sometimes it happens, but that's the exception not the norm. Sync has been incredibly stable for me over the last day. Memmy on my phone and Connect haven't been. No shade to the devs, but devs approach a solution differently when that is how they support themselves. Passion can only carry a project so far, speaking as a dev myself.
That makes a bit more sense. I didn’t realize it was being marketed as a professional/enterprise tool.
FOSS apps are hobbies. Sync is LJ's job and will be better given the refinement it has received over years at reddit.