It's cool to hate it, for a lot of people who moved to fediverse early, it's a matter of FOSS software and an ideology. Everyone has a flexing point in their ideology, early adopters of fediverse can't be flexible at closed source products. I personally draw my flexing boundary at large capitalist companies. Sync is developed by one guy and tbh with a way pretty UI than any of the FOSS software has (my personal opinion) so I like it. And I use it. But I understand the ideological point of FOSS everything, but I don't understand people who want FOSS everything but they contribute nothing.
I understand why people want to use FOSS, but I don't understand being annoyed that a non FOSS project costs money. It doesn't take away your choice and only adds more choice and gives FOSS devs a target to make their apps better. I only see upsides to having more choices of clients. This isn't some huge mega corporations trying to monopolize on a platform, it's a small solo dev that's making a client for a platform with an open standard that cannot be closed off by design. There's no downside to having more competition. It's not like sync will put the FOSS options out of business since they're free hobby projects to begin with.
I agree that I'm not flexible with non FOSS software but at the same time I'm glad that this new app will bring more people to lemmy and the fediverse in general. I just in huge disagreement over the pricing policy out of principle. I'm glad the money is going to one person instead of a mega Corp but his app should have been priced at less than 10$ for a, lifetime and maybe 20 for ultra. More than 20$ for lifetime and 100$+ is bonkers and no regional pricing even. As good as his app is it is not anywhere near that value.
I appreciate you answering the question and being brave enough to step forward to do so.
I think what's been confusing me is why so many lemmings feel they need to tell us which UX to use and whether we should value it one way or another...
They'll say, "use what works for you" but...
"it's should be (almost free)." Making an absolute value judgment, no caveat or allowing for other tastes or bank accounts.
It's just bad form. If it confuses them, I get it. Strict adherence to FOSS confuses me. But we can talk that through.
But I'm not going to tell them that they're doing it wrong or that they're objectively valuing FOSS incorrectly.
But that keeps happening to Sync. I appreciate you answering the question and engaging.
This need to continually tell us that we're wrong for supporting the app and dev is mystifying to me.
It's like me telling everyone to stop funding the instance because it's paid through the end of the year. Even mentioning that the instance was/is healthy feels like poor form.
But if people aren't sure the instance will endure, the engagement may not persist.
Yet lemmings have stirred the doubt-pot, too. The instance deserves support. The dev deserves support. Labor, any labor, cannot be expected to be free.
That's my moral line. You may have another one. That's fine. The above is my opinion, not objective fact.
I just don't get the need to keep shitting on people enjoying an app or paying for it.
Once I was exactly like you described: "people who want FOSS everything but they contribute nothing". Indeed, it was really bothering me to not contribute anything, but the reason was I didn't have much confidence about my skills. I slowly break that barrier of lacking confidence.
If there are people out there like who I was, please just go and commit anything on any project, whatever it is, doesn't matter.
Most code isn't really that good, it's just good enough. If you think your code isn't good enough, you should just read the codebase you're thinking about contributing to. It's probably full of stuff you would have been embarrassed about.
I don't hate it. What rubs me the wrong way is the $20 ask to remove ads, when alternative apps exists that don't charge or even have ads yet. It feels far too steep for what it's designed to handle, compared to Reddit. $5 would have been reasonable as an early bird deal, then $10 afterwards would have made more sense. Then add a tip jar for those who feel generous.
It's a bit of a catch-22 because while Lemmy and the Sync for Lemmy userbase is small the dev needs to ask for more to keep the lights on.
If there was a larger pool of users who might potentially subscribe then the dev wouldn't have to charge as much.
But from a user perspective it might seem like a smaller/newer platform like Lemmy doesn't justify a higher cost.
For me personally I am happy to pay it because I used and loved Sync for years on Reddit and having had the experience with creating a Reddit app the dev has been able to provide a more complete/polished interface for Lemmy than possibly any other app available right now.
As a sync user, I agree, $20 is a steep price for what lemmy is currently offering. If I'm sure I'm gonna staying on lemmy for years (like I did for reddit), im probably gonna pay. But only time will tell. But so far the als I've seen are really not that frequent or intrusive, and I'm just happy I have sync back tbh.
But it is $30 on my end to remove the ads on sync. I completely agree with you, and I had sync for years. I am currently using Jerboa, and it fits my needs.
What rubs me the wrong way is the $20 ask to remove ads
I would feel the same way if Sync was the one and only option to view Lemmy on mobile but it's not. You can use all the other FOSS apps which don't have ads.
By the way you can install a global adblocker on your phone to remove all (well, most let's say) ads across your device. I use one and don't see any ads on Sync, just a blank square.