this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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Sync for Lemmy
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LJ,
I too am a reddit refugee. I like what you've done with this place.
:)
But we have to talk about pricing and privacy.
Pricing: tbh I see not much wrong with the 20 bucks. But I do think that you should take 2 bucks from that and donate one to the lemmy org (this is not reddit, nobody is getting paid, the lemmy devs also need an incentive) and the other one to lemmy.world because that's the instance you're dumping us all on. Hosting is not free, lemmy.world costs money and probably a lot of time to run. Being a reddit admin is a payed job, being Ruud at lemmy.world most certainly is not.
In this way "we" are giving back to the Foss community and it should silence a lot of critics. In that way you don't look like the evil capitalist earning a quick buck over the back of free labour of the foss community. I think that's 2 bucks well spent.
Edit: same goes for ultra subscriptions of course, a similar percentage should be fed back to the lemmy org and lemmy.world.
Privacy: since you're using admob and I forgot the other one, privacy is out the window. That's a big issue for the Foss community we're all relying on. Maybe it's wise to point out that once you pay for sync all that tracking that admob and the other one (not you I hope) does is out the window.
Edit edit: maybe you could also add a yearly reminder to donate to the users favourite lemmy instance.
I've said quite a few times but the ad library isn't initialised if you pay to remove ads.
LJ, first thanks for doing this and bringing us here. You're a big reason for the spike in lemmy traffic recently and it's very promising.
I just wanted to add my $0.02 that the pricing to remove ads seems prohibitively high. I think you could encourage more lost redditors and former reddit Sync users to try this out ad-free with a very low price point. Give it some sort of marketing hype term like "Founder's Premium": a one-time payment of $8 gets you sync for Lemmy with no ads, forever. Available to early adopters until Sept 1st.
Maybe add higher priced tiers for those who have the cash and want to essentially donate / thank the author, and give them bells and whistles like fancy custom name and flair styles to show off.
Lemmy is new and unknown to a lot of folks. Sync feels like coming back to sit in your favorite comfy chair, but in a strange and foreign house. So people are going to be wary. Asking them to either subscribe or pay a huge one time premium is going to discourage folks at a critical time where they should be encouraged instead.
Don't just say it, put it in the app: no adds and no tracking : click here!
Hi LJ, I've been reading quite a few sync posts and concerned about the privacy topic as well. If this is the case that the ad lib is disabled with purchase, it really needs to be laid out more obviously because it had me looking for alternatives.
You just gonna ignore his other points?
$20 is enough of a barrier to keep out new people. I was considering maybe trying it out until then.
I don't remember what I paid for RiF years ago, but it was a lot less than that. Heh, I looked it up. November 27th, 2013 I paid $1.99 for RiF. January 4th, 2014 I paid $0.99 for Sync for Reddit. I never used it, but apparently I had it.
$5-$8 seems much more reasonable. You'd probably even make more money through volume. $20 is prohibitive.
Edit: Oh God, it's $20 per year?!? Is that a joke?
No, it's a one time payment just to remove ads.
Removing ads is a one-time fee as stated in the OP. There's a separate subscription for additional features but it's not required. You're free to disagree with the pricing but try to understand the facts before complaining.
As a separate point to the dev, since it's not just one or two people getting confused, perhaps a link to the one-off ad removal on the Sync Ultra page if it's not there already?
Yea I immediately uninstalled when I saw the pricing. I paid for sync pro. The other free apps are more than adequate and don't have ads. I'd donate if a percentage was included but honestly the subscription model for this doesn't make sense.
Have you not been paying attention? Everything was a lot cheaper a few years ago.
And that apparently justifies literally any price.
Well, I don't consider Sync to be overpriced. So clearly we aren't going to agree on this. Not only did I buy Sync Ultra on both Reddit and Lemmy, for a time I further supported Ljdawson on Patreon.
I spend up to an hour a day in Sync. So even amortized over only one year (and I used Sync on Reddit for many years) that's 27 cents a day. Chump change.
In addition, I view supporting the app devs as a boost to the Lemmy community. Isn't app availability apps why many of us are here?
Polished apps will grow the fediverse.
I never said sync is overpriced at 20 bucks. I said he should give 2 bucks back to the Foss community.
Sync is not Foss so no, paying for sync does not mean your paying for Foss. You make lemmy more popular, that's true. And by doing that you're raising the cost of hosting lemmy.world which is ran solely on gifts from some users. We should do something to alleviate that.
I agree that we as a community need to figure out a sustainable way for the devs and maintainers to see revenue. I'm likely going to sub to the .world Patreon.
Why Lemmy.world, though? There are many instances and all of them cost money.
I think you underestimate how negative the Internet can be. :) People will just find a new aspect of the app to complain about.