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.]

    • hunt4peas@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      What’s more infuriating is that Lemmy itself doesn’t have ads but Sync has, sadly.

      • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • the_gmg@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • Ducks@ducks.dev
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            1 year ago

            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.

            • AmosBurton_ThatGuy@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              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.

        • Cakeboss16@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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            1 year ago

            But the dev already confirmed that they’ll put a one time payment for removing ads though, just not in this beta release.

          • jaye@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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?

            • nogooduser@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Everyone needs to make their own decision but IMO Sync’s UI is a million times better than the actual site even with ads.

              • SuperIce@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                But there are tons of other third party apps that are ad free that are just as good as Sync.

      • Laticauda@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • Squirrel@thelemmy.club
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • elco@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • SmoothIsFast@citizensgaming.com
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • nogooduser@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • Stumblinbear@pawb.social
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      1 year ago

      Everything is a subscription because users demand their software be updated on a consistent basis. That’s the nature of software development.

    • crummysocks@lemmy.world
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      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