Honestly I would prefer to be able to buy a separate "Pro" version from the Play Store, without an in-app purchase. There have been issues in the past where in-app purchases didn't get recognized or when ads suddenly started appearing for people who bought the ad removal option.
It will continue to be so weird for me to go from no ads to ads (or paying a subscription) just because you like the interface a bit more. All the free UIs already available seem perfectly usable and roughly equivalent in convenience.
Yeah. I don't see a compelling reason to switch to Sync when there are so many other alternatives that are free and without ads. And then comes the subscription! Get outta here. I'm not even going to mention the data tracking. I'm sticking with my FOSS apps, thank you very much.
Yeah, if subscription is the only way to remove ads then I'm fine with the Foss options like liftoff. And I'm blocking ads system wide on my phone, so it's not like I see any ads on Sync. But, I would still prefer to be able to pay to remove it, since I have moved away from using apps that have ads in favor of Foss or paying to for the ad free version over the years.
Yep, I had my credit card out (figuratively) and was ready to buy the ad free version, just to support the dev - but I turned right around when I saw the price (AUD$34).
I don't see ads either, it was literally just about the support for me. I'm weighing up whether to go back to Connect on principle, and if Adguard stops working on Sync, I'll definitely just walk away.
$17/yr feels crazy expensive. After only a few years it's the price of a AAA video game which obviously has an order of magnitude more development put into it. The money wouldn't even be going towards Lemmy where the real costs are since they are the ones actually hosting it all...
Apps used to be, what, $5? Now everything's a subscription and you end up paying 10x as much money if you use the app for just a few years. I will never buy into the subscription model for services that used to be single-payment. Never.
$17 is almost 20% less than it will cost me to see OPPENHEIMER in 70mm IMAX. The former lasts a year, the latter 3 hours. Which will be more engaging? 🤔
Subscription models only make sense for an app/service that have recurring costs.
In the case of Lemmy apps, the instances are the ones with recurring hosting costs, not the apps.
If an app doesn’t have recurring hosting costs, it only makes sense to have one up front payment and then maybe in app purchases to pay for new features going forward.
Subscription models for an app that’s not hosting anything is just the dev wanting a constant revenue stream, no matter how they try to word it.
It sounds like there will be a one time purchase option (Sync Pro) but I haven't seen a timeline.
Personally, I'm doing the monthly subscription until Pro comes out. I appreciate that the dev got this beta up and running so quickly so I'm treating the subscription as a "thanks for your hard work." Like you, I'm overburdened with subscriptions, though, and can't maintain that long term.
It's not localized pricing yet, which means it could be weeks worth of a wage in poorer countries. $17 american is a lot if you go to some SEA countries.
As a Sync Pro Reddit user, I was excited for the switch. I'm just sticking to Jerboa. It gets the job done. There isn't enough content on here to justify spending money imo.