this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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Synce is hilarious to me. "You know how Lemmy is completely free to use? What if it had ADs! And what if you had to pay money to remove those ADs!".
And people lined up around the block for it.
Yeah, developers shouldn't make money unless granted a benevolent donation.
There are plenty of other developers, new ones that were happy to work on integrations and apps for the fediverse. While sync is great, it's like a giant Walmart moving into the area, displacing other viable alternatives.
Developers should make money. Just not with ads.
You can pay one time to remove the ads, or sign up for Sync's Ultra subscription which provides additional features like OCR in images and text translation.
Once you do so, the ad library is not invoked at all.
Then pay for the ad free version, and you're letting them make money without ads.
If you just want to steal people's labor, then nah.
Then you can buy the ad-free version.
I'm not trying to be rude here, but please read my post. Paying to remove ads is part of the ad business model. Anyone who pays to remove ads means the developer profited from ads.
So in your mind, what does the business model look like for the developer? If they can't charge for their app and they can't offer it for free with ads, then what is the expectation? 100% FOSS and assume that goodwill from users will give them enough in donations?
I saw in your comment you are in favor of charging for the app, but how is the ad free version not exactly that? It's a paid app for those who want that but it's a free app for those who don't mind ads. It just seems needlessly nitpicky for that to be the point of contention here.
You do know that there are a dozen other apps that don't charge anything, don't you? Sync is the only one that costs money. It's the only one that has ads.
Sure, and that's great! There are so many good no-cost, ad-free Lemmy apps out there. And I suppose that's what leaves me confused when people get upset because just one app happens to be monetized. With so many viable alternatives, why make this the hill to die on?
People who donate their time and expertise to provide something for free are admirable, but it's the nature of the beast called capitalism that makes that option not feasible for everyone. When people need to afford food and rent, and an app might be someone's primary income, there should never be an expectation that someone offer something for free, just an appreciation when they do.
It's also the best hands-down. If you want to use a worse free app, that's fine. I haven't paid for Sync for Lemmy, and I deal with 1 ad every 5 pages or so. I'm not that sensitive.
So basically the solution is hobbyist apps only?
They won't listen to you. They're too wrapped up in defending it.
If people line up around the block for it, maybe it does actually add value? You can hate ads, I do too. But if people willingly look at ads to visit a website (Lemmy) that does not have any in its original version, then for those people the app obviously adds enough value to make it worth it, don't you think?
The app is really nice.
Yes, because the lineup is worth it when the product trumps the competition.