I left Reddit because Spez is an asshole and he killed third-party API access (which, btw, impacted more than just clients - many useful bots/scripts died too as a result of this change).
For many of us, Sync was Reddit, and killing Sync basically killed Reddit for us, but now that Sync is back (for Lemmy), many of us are more than happy to pay a subscription to support the dev, instead of supporting Reddit. ljdawson is an awesome developer who actually listens to his users and updates his apps regularly. If you don’t want to support him and/or use a different app, that’s your call of course, but for fans of Sync, it’s like coming back home after a long time and getting that feeling of “there’s no place like home”.
It’s certainly a nice app, but I’ve also grown attached to Connect over these last few weeks. I even donated to the dev, which is something my stingy ass never does.
While I loved Sync, I’m not paying $20/yr for any social media. If I recall, Sync Pro for Reddit was something like $5-6 lifetime. I’d pay that again without blinking an eye.
If you use private dns if on android then no ads in sync. I just saw this post and noticed there were no ads in my sync app. Then I remembered that I am using private dns for blocking ads. I might switch it on for supporting the dev. Because non intrusive ads are fine for a great lemmy experience. Now I am having the same experience of sync when I use reddit.
I was on Reddit for 13 years, and bought the pro version every app ever made for the platform (sync, RiF, bacon reader, boost, Apollo, Joey, etc, etc.). Sync was … fine. But in no way was it a stand out. RiF had them all beat by a mile for nearly a decade, then Joey elbowed them out in the last few years.
Anyway, I’d have been happy to buy sync Pro for lemmy, but a subscription is bonkers when there are free alternatives.
Dev has to somehow pay their bills. And for continuous support they need some kind of reward for their time and effort. Eventually other apps will be moved to subscription or they will just stop updating. These apps will still run because of ad support or subscription. Ads are actually non intrusive.
If you think ads are non intrusive we have different definitions.
If any selection of the free content network I’m a part of isn’t showing me the content I want it’s an intrusion.
There are umpteen services that run on donations, telling yourself ads are necessary is the same deal with the devil as the public Internet.
The issue people have with Sync is the model going against the philosophy of Lemmy and the fediverse.
People aren’t mad at paying for the app if it was a one time payment.
