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Where do you see that? I have not found this option at all.
It should be in the profile menu on the top left. Perhaps LJ is rolling it out selectively.
I bought it last night and it was half the price in OP’s screenshot. Either it has gone up, or again perhaps there is some A/B testing going on at different price points.
Thanks! Worked for me, was 21.99 Euro here.
i don’t think it is selective just update the app regularly
The price seems to vary quite a bit depending on the location. Probably something on google play’s end?
It’s getting ridiculous everyday
What is ridiculous about this in your opinion?
It’s very steep since tons of reddit apps were more like $2 for the pro version.
I can see how that’s too low to be sustainable, but $25 is a lot more.Reddit has a lot more users. Plus lemmy isn’t as stable a user base as Reddit.
Lemmy has a smaller audience, so it makes sense to charge more. And everything is getting more expensive these days anyway.
Huh? It’s only been out for a day.
Inflation, duh.
It’s been $33.99 AUD since it was released.
$37.99 NZD here
Typical for Australia though tbh, getting the shit end of the deal
Strictly speaking, everyone is getting the shit end of the deal. Reddit Sync was 4 quid, one off payment.
I would pay extra to not have to hear people complain about a choice no one is forcing them to make
Do what works for you, and let other people do the same
It doesn’t feels like a choice in the modern world. It is either awful experience with shit ads or normal experience with paying. Is it that hard to understand people?
It would be a lot better if it was a true donation, since Lemmy itself doesn’t have ads. The developer also has very minimal fees to cover, so it makes no sense to add ads ontop of a free service and have a steep price to remove it (yes, 20+ dollars for an app toconly remove ads is steep, look around at other app prices). This was not the case for Sync on Reddit, it was a lot cheaper.
It just seems unnecessarily greedy by the developer
Then don’t use sync
Yea I don’t anymore, switched to Voyager since it’s on google play store now
how does it compare ? I’ve been using Sync for years but I’ll gladly ditch any service that’s doesn’t align with my values provided I have an alternative
So far it’s pretty great, it has a few minor bugs in it and some features that could be added but looks like it has an active developer so not really an issue
Thanks for the heads up on Voyager. Will definitely give that a try.
Hey, man’s gotta eat. And there’s many roads to Rome if you really don’t want to pay the developer to remove the ads.
Man’s gotta eat, but he doesn’t have to be gluttonous
Y’all are ridiculous. $20 is less than the median hourly wage in the US for both men and women, even worst case scenario you’re earning $7.25 an hour so almost 3 hours of work to pay for ad free Sync. I challenge you to make a better app in those same 3 hours so you don’t need to pay for it.
Not only are you paying for the app as it is now, you’re paying for years if not DECADES of updates too. All done by ONE GUY.
If you don’t like it, don’t use it. Stop character shaming the dev for trying to make an honest living creating an app a LOT of people (including myself) wanted.
It’s more expensive than the upgrade was for Reddit, but it’s a smaller market and you pay more for a niche product. I don’t have a problem with him getting paid for a good product.
people seem to forget that the dev wants to work FULL TIME on the app, you are paying for having great updates quick bug fixes etc.
That was the case for sync for reddit too.
I would like to point out that @ljdawson@lemmy.world has been very forward to the LW team and he has our full support. And while Lemmy itself doesn’t have ads and Lemmy World is running on donations and volunteers that doesn’t mean that every developer should be forced to do charity-work. This is his full-time job and he provided plenty of choices for those who don’t want to pay or who don’t want to pay the full price for Ultra. If that’s not enough, nobody is forcing you to do anything.
Block this subreddit for a while I guess, check in after a month.
this subreddit
TRIGGERED
No kidding. Bunch of crybabies
I’ve seen 4 posts in the last two days that have solidified the fact I will never even TRY Sync. Dev seems like a real scumbag. I’m pretty happy with Liftoff so far.
Check out Infinity if you haven’t already. It’s an early port though.
https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy/releasesWhat the heck?! This is actually a great app with an actual working tablet landscape mode and looks great! Thank you!
I was trying different apps since Infinity was my go to for Reddit but I caved and downloaded it this morning. Honestly it’s just a great app that works even as an early port. I’m sold again.
Oddly enough I think Jerboa was my second favorite for Lemmy. It’s just so incredibly basic in functionality that it feels lacking. First impressions back then weren’t good though, as it simply crashed constantly. Infinity has a lot of features, but the options menu is quite messy.
I’m at the point where if Sync ad-free is $10 USD I’m in there, but it just doesn’t do enough that Jerboa doesn’t for me to spend an entire $20 rn.
Regardless of what you think of the pricing, the dev is not a “scumbag”.
I used Sync for Reddit for many years, and he is without a doubt the most responsive and accommodating app dev I’ve ever encountered. Always updating the community, always looking into improvements, and always friendly and helpful. Not to mention extremely skilled at what he does, as you would discover if you tried Sync (even in its free form).
Your accusation is absolutely over the top and completely contrary to reality. Of course you’re free to use whatever app you like, and to disagree with the Sync pricing policy. But there’s no need or justification for talking about him like that.
Ok, I don’t agree with the price and all the people that are answering with excuses about pricing more because Lemmy has less users, so people have to pay more for a platform that is still on their early years? That honestly makes no sense to me.
Said that, Laurence (Sync dev) is a really awesome person.
The amount of work and feedback he replies to, makes Sync, while closes source, feels like a collaborative software.
So… No he’s definitely not a scumbag.
Simple solution. Get DNS66 from the F-droid site (not the Play Store version that wants a subscription). That takes care of the ads in all my apps. It inserts itself like a VPN, filtering all Internet traffic, blocking the ad servers.
Used DNS adguar before , now I use proton VPN which has it built in with netshield
Or RethinkDNS
or NextDNS or Adguard
Personally I’m more for using a custom DNS server to block ads.
I was using Blokada 5, but found that it used a bit too much of my battery.
Now I just set my DNS to dns.adblock.com, and it gives me the same result.
Mullvad VPN also includes the ability to block all ads at the DNS level, so if you don’t already have a VPN (or if you’re not happy with your current one), I highly recommend it. Great VPN, great speed, great company.
Mozilla VPN uses Mullvad’s servers so it offers pretty much the same QoS but some of it goes to a non-profit that develops and supports Firefox, funds white hats finding and patching bugs in the Fediverse. and fights for an open web.
(It also features DNS-level ad blocking.)
AdGuard does the same. All I see is “sponsored content” and keep scrolling.
Yup. Maybe the author still makes money from them even if they are blocked by our dns servers. Hope so, would be a win win.
Nope he gets nothing. If the ad fails to load then there is no money to be gained by the developer.
Would be nice if it was possible to load the ad but not view it, getting the best of all worlds.
Greed, probably.
There’s no ads in Lemmy.
There’s no ads, yet.
I feel like ads in lemmy would be a hard to implement thing, it would need to be done on the instance level… and people would just jump ship to another instance that didn’t have ads. it’s possible that it could post ads as posts that get federated but it sounds like an amazing way to potentially get your instance defederated in concern that it’s going to devolve to constant spam.
I mean, right now, yeah. But these instances use resources, which means they’re not free. Someone needs to cover the bill. I remember when YouTubers were put on blast when they started running ads and now it’s normal.
Or there might be instances that are specific paid and that’s known. Like an OnlyLemmy or something.
I can confirm the price with a bit of variation 21.99€ for me.
€18.99 here in Belgium. I would think it is adjusted now with local VAT percentages.
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As much fun as Sync is (and while I appreciate creators want to get paid)…
We’re talking like $15-30(!). That’s steep for a phone app. All this money stuff is pushing me back to Connect and Jerboa.
I wish Sync well. But I think I’m done with it already.
Ditto. I used to be a big Sync fan and used it for years as my primary mobile client for Reddit until 8-10 months or so ago when the dev did a ‘fuck off and be unable to be contacted while something in the app breaks’ break, which led to a bunch of ads appearing despite paying for no ads (and according to people on the subreddit at the time it was not a one time occurrence lol). I switched that day to Boost and didn’t go back, but I was looking forward to trying out Sync for Lemmy when it released.
All the privacy and pricing concerns the last 24 hours have brought forth does not make me wanna even touch the app lol. I’m not paying that much money to fucking browse a glorified forum on my phone (specially when there’s many other options).
Given how much time I spent on Sync with Reddit, I imagine the ultra one-time price ($99) will end up being a dollar per hour in a few months and just go down from there.
A dollar per hour for entertainment is generally a good deal to me.
While liftoff was the only third party I liked, I still think it was pretty unimpressive. It ran ok and that’s about it. Features were lacking, aesthetics are bad, some glitches. For me the $20 or whatever it is for sync is worth it. I’ve used reddit since 2012 and browsed exclusively on my phone, swapping between relay and sync. If you average that cost out, even considering the $5 or whatever it was to get rid of ads on Reddit, it’s basically nothing. The usage tracking is pretty shitty though.
EDIT: Ok I just saw the lifetime price for ultra, damn wtf lol. Again, averaging that cost over the ten years I’ve used the app means it’s still a good deal but fuck upfront that’s a lot lmao
It really should’ve been $50 for Lifetime, at most.
They are okay and did the job until Sync came out. But are no way near as polished as Sync, which has years of updates and development.
Yeah I’ve been using a lot of the available apps and while I had my favorites (Summit and Liftoff) there has always been little quirks that I’ve just been dealing with. The moment Sync hit my device it’s like I’m back to my reddit experience for the last decade. I’ll still keep an eye on the other apps, because I very much prefer and try to support open source developers. But I just can’t force a subpar experience on myself.
The Summit dev has been extremely responsive and has added in a few features I requested on a quick turnaround. They also happen to be out of town on a work trip this week so the timing probably sucks for them. And as I’m typing this I’m remembering that ones not even open source 🤦♂️.
It’s not open source, but it’s also not spyware or adware.
I’ll just wait, they are usable enough. If you want the Lemmy experience to improve, donate $5 or $20 for Lemmy (in-browser) UI development, which is still default for most devices and it very much sucks. (Part of it is lack of support for anything like cross-domain cookies in browser technology that would store what your home instance is so that you would be always redirected to browse from home but even without it there are problems.)
I like Sync so no thank you
Okay, I won’t push you from Sync. But if you have the money to remove its ads, please also consider supporting Lemmy directly or indirectly (Mozilla, among other things, funded the effort to find and patch TootRoot before it became a problem). If you don’t want to just donate, switching to Mozilla VPN will also help.
Summit.
Yes.
There are a lot of other apps for Lemmy. Some are not as polished as Sync – but some are. And none (that I know of, on Android) are ad supported. Most are open source and 100% free.
This is a money grab. People were so excited for Sync that they don’t want to call it a money grab. But that’s what it is.
🙄 it’s a small dev, who got shut out of the previous customer base they’d built up, and now has to rebuild with fewer customers (and fewer potential customers at least short term).
If your job lost 70% of its customers, I bet you’d be begging your boss to raise prices to avoid a 70% pay cut.
It’s not a money grab. It drives me crazy how much stuff people say is a “money grab”, “theft”, “a scam”, “predatory”, etc. Asking for money isn’t malicious, neither is asking for more money than you personally think is reasonable/makes sense for your finances, and neither is offering a freemium ad supported app (which is better than nothing if you’re not willing to pay with money).
Edit: and sorry if that sounds overly aggressive, but you definitely struck a nerve/peeve as of late. It just seems like everyone wants to be as dramatic as possible lately.
I see your point. And you don’t deserve to be down voted, as it’s reasonable.
I do think he’s pricing it a bit steep for what the market can bear. Maybe not. I hope he gets as much as possible. I just know that I am priced out and will continue to use Connect.
I’m sorry to hear that you’re priced out, and I think it’s fine to give pricing feedback like that. I just am sick of everything being “outrage” where someone “dares” to try to make some money in exchange for their effort.
I both wish you a better financial situation and that a shorter term compromise arrives where you can afford the app, or that you continue to be satisfied with Connect. One of the beauties of the fediverse is that it’s not an all or nothing thing, there are other clients and other ways to support folks and the community (even just being a friendly person, so props there).
If your job lost 70% of its customers, I bet you’d be begging your boss to raise prices to avoid a 70% pay cut.
doing so will result in losing the remaining 30%
That’s a farce; it happens all the time, revenue stops increasing from growing the customer base, so the prices are raised on the existing customer base to cover costs and keep things operational. Why do you think Netflix still isn’t $8.99, and password sharing is no longer permitted?
If you definitely know you can’t make enough money on 30% of 1,000,000 people, but you can make enough money charging 10% of 1,000,000 people a higher rate, you’re going to do that … because it’s your only option. There are diminishing returns to picking up new customers with lower prices.
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Not the person you replied to but I don’t evaluate app prices in a vacuum. First I think of what paying actually gets me (e.g. no ads), then I consider how it compares to alternatives both free and paid. A paid app has to provide some value over a free app and an expensive app has to provide some value over cheaper apps. Furthermore if an app is priced such that I can buy 3-4 other apps while also being more expensive than any individual apps I’ve previously purchased then it gives me some pause.
I think that asking to be paid for your work is totally fine (albeit I myself made my lemmy app completely free and opensource, simply because its just my hobby project), but its a rather different story when you provide app for open source, nonprofit venture-free platform and start to inject ads and trackers into it. Its goes against the entire idea of free decentralised platform and makes it closer to profit-focused app like reddit/threads/etc imo
I agree. While $20 could still be seen as reasonable - even though making it one of the more expensive apps, thigh I’m willing to go for it if Sync continues development -, the asking price of $100 for the lifetime ultra is insane. I’m not aware of any other app that is this expensive. Of course, you could argue there’s subscription apps out there that don’t even have a lifetime model - e.g. Adobe, Microsoft Office -, But these provide considerably more value as well and are huge corporations.
My feeling is - and I don’t have facts to prove it - that the developers of the large reddit apps (esp. Apollo) simply became used to the money making machine and want to squeeze as much as possible out of it.
While in the end it is entirely up to them, as there’s open source and free alternatives out there, I’m not too fond of this behavior.
Voyager is fantastic IMO. wefwef.app , it is a web app, it will even put am icon for itself on your phone so it feels just like a regular app. Works really great, and is really fast.
Voyager is also available at m.lemmy.world since I see you are using lemmy.world
What do you mean? Is there a distinction between lemmy.world and m.lemmy.world?
m.lemmy.world host a voyager instance preconfigured to load posts from lemmy.world.
Interesting, I had no idea, thanks!
It’s also available in the Android Play Store and will be on the iOS App Store soon.
WTF is this in CAD!?
According to Google that’s about 30.75CAD
The amounts are CAD. $134!?
Oh, sorry, I misunderstood - i though that was USD and you were asking how much it would be in CAD. My bad.
That’s for life.
So I just took a look because I paid 19cad for the remove ads option which was distinct from “sync ultra”.
I think part of what’s confusing is there was never previously a sync ultra lifetime price it was always just monthly or yearly. And sync pro was the lifetime price which was also out before ultra was a thing.
If you open the menu, above sync ultra is there a “remove ads” button with a more reasonable (lifetime/onetime) price?
Does the premium version remove trackers or just stops ads appearing?
Yes. That is specifically for Google’s ad service. It’s gone with the ad-free version.
The trackers were specifically there for Google’s ad service, so I assume this’ll get rid of those too.
Dev has confirmed multiple times that trackers are not even initialized if you pay to remove the ads.
