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For those offended by subscription for ad-free experience and data collection, consider Connect for Lemmy. No data collection and no pay-to-browse scheme.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kuroneko.lemmy_connect&hl=en_US&gl=US
Connect dev here. I can promise Connect will never have ads or subscriptions.
Connect is a good app, but it just isn’t as polished as Sync yet. I will stick with Connect for the time being though.
Thank you. I’ll donate. Would you consider making it open source? I used to be a fan of Sync and had their one time payment for ultra version. But this current release is subscription only and I don’t want to any subscription. Again thank you. The app is great so far.
One time remove ad and lifetime ultra were added this evening into sync.
I sincerely don’t know why would someone downvote your comment.
I will be donating to you. $20 to remove ads is nonsense.
I’m okay with paying the subscription fee. I purchased Sync for Reddit Ultra back in the day with a one time payment and that was great, but it was one of the most supported apps I have ever bought in all my years of using computers and phones. For several years, I got a well supported app, and I felt like I got a steal of a purchase. I don’t feel that the annual fee for Sync forLemmy is a cash grab by LJDawson, especially if the app just keeps getting better and better. It’s already the most polished Lemmy client out now.
People are willing to pay for a better experience.
I think you are missing the problem here. Paying for a good product or extra features is one thing. Paying to remove the ads that you added in the first place is another. Lemmy is funded entirely by donations and doesn’t have any ads.
It’s a pretty bad look that is fundamentally against the goals of Lemmy as ad free an open platform with a free API. Otherwise we are going to go down the same rabbit hole again and again like what happened with Reddit.
The ads/subscription support the developer, who works on this as his full time job. This means we get a better app.
So you are ok with ads and paid subscriptions to remove them, but you aren’t ok with Reddit charging for access to its API? How do you reconcile the contradiction here? Reddit developers have to eat too. They are just a business trying to make money. What if Lemmy instances started charging for its API and priced out third party apps then added ads/subscription to their own app? All just part of the cycle?
There’s no contradiction. It’s just a free market. Reddit charged an absurd amount for their API and offered an inferior product as the only alternative. So people left.
If a Lemmy instance wants to charge for access or serve ads, that’s fine too. But they better have some competitive advantage or people will leave for an instance that doesn’t do that.
Another difference between Reddit and Sync is the scale. I support my local coffee shop over Starbucks for the same reason.
Funny how no one expects a coffee shop to run on donations.
I’m fine with paying for a service I like and I did subscribe to reddit for many years. But even though I was a subscriber they cut off access to my apps. So screw them.
I understand that nothing’s free so I plan to donate to lemmy.world to help them with their costs.
I’m getting tired of people telling me what Lemmy is supposed to be about.
Every individual instance has their own goals that are completely independent from the core Lemmy project. If the creators of Lemmy don’t like that they shouldn’t have made it open source.
This exactly
Lemmy choosing not to serve ads doesn’t mean nobody else is allowed to. I have no issues with Sync serving ads at all. Heck, I wouldn’t even care if Lemmy served them. People have a right to be paid a reasonable amount for their effort
This is more relevant for Lemmy than client apps, but the problem with relying on ads is that you then become beholden to the ad-buyers.
I think that can be mitigated by operating as a non-profit that is not seeking to launch a multi-billion IPO at some point in the future, however. Decentralization is the answer to the “growth problem” that the last decade of failed tech investments has constantly run into.
Depends on what you mean by beholden to them. Unless you’re partnering directly with certain ad providers it’s pretty much plug-and-play: you can just choose to not optimize for serving ads.
Part of the purpose of moving from Reddit to Lemmy is that a for profit corporation making money off of the free content of users was considered bad. I might even say this was the main point of contention and thought that spawned the creation of Lemmy. A free open platform where the users are more in control of their own content. Adding ads back into the mix means that somebody is profiting again off of the free content of the users. On principal this goes against the purpose of Lemmy. You may as well just use Reddit as the end goal of monetizing the fediverse is basically going to end up the same.
So for Sync to not be against the spirit of Lemmy it would need to remove its free version with ads so that the only thing you are paying for is the app itself and not for the content without ads.
Just don’t use the app. This isn’t rocket science.
Sync is still just one guy so it’s not some mega corp. I don’t like ad monetization model either but with the few apps I use regularly I’ll pay to remove.
Yeah, connect is good, I’m using it right now. Wish it could be open source though.
don’t like the excessive padding and lack of stuff everywhere tho, feels so empty.
I was not a previous sync user, but it seems to be a beloved app. Although…
I am somewhat surprised at the use of personal data in the privacy policy.
I understand a guy’s gotta make a living, but with all the hype, I’m not sure I expected this.
On top of all that there’s an ongoing subscription service to use the premium features of the app. I’d happily pay $10-$20 one time for the app, but there’s no way in hell I’m paying monthly for a bit of scrolling when Jerboa does the same stuff with no ads for free.
Lj has states he intends to introduce a one time payment for ad removal in the near future. People getting huffy over a 6-pack a year fee can rest easy soon enough.
There is now a one time payment option to remove ads
It says it’d collect “device information” and “Usage data”. What does that even mean?
Where you look, what you look at, how long you look, and where you
clicktap.So it’s just everything
I’m a dev so can shed some light. It’s likely linked to a service called Firebase, which gives many tools to track how people use your app. You can run tests against sections of your user base to determine the best way to apply certain features before rolling them out, as well as crash reporting and the ability to see “user journeys.” These “journeys” are often used to determine how to better structure an app so that users can get to where they want to go more quickly. It’s a way of collecting user feedback without asking for user feedback. It’s incredibly useful for feature development and bug fixing
Now, given they have ads, they’re probably using Google adsense which is likely linked to firebase, so Google may get some information on how people use the app in order to increase revenue per impression. This is largely automatic
yeah same here, sticking to jerboa for now. I hope it’s not going to be the same for boost for lemmy.
does anyone know if the privacy policy is only for the “free” version of sync? app store says the free version has ads too, I guess you can buy it at some point to get rid of them.
Even with ads Sync is a thousand miles ahead of Jerboa in terms of usability and experience. I’ll happily have ads to not have an objectively worse experience
maybe,I wouldn’t even mind paying for ads. I mainly don’t like being mined for data.
edit: paying for removing ads of course.
Same , i was not using it previously , but i can see the privacy policy is not good ! There are good open source apps !
Probably for the ads?
it’s only used by third parties like admob.
if you’re a paying user, admob library is not loaded at all, and crashlytics can be disabled in the settings.Thank you for the clarification.
deleted by creator
I owned a Sync license but never used it, I preferred Relay. I think I had five or six licenses for Reddit apps including Relay.
Can’t wait to try this out. I understand the apprehension some people have but I was a loyal user of reddit sync for many years.
Am trying it and I like it a lot so far !
I’m disappointed in it and will go back to one of the ad free, free apps…
Yeah, it looks like an excellent app, but I refuse to deal with ads on Lemmy. As the app is great I would happily pay a one time fee to remove ads, but it seems that the only option is a subscription, which is a no go for me.
He’s still debating a pro tier with ad free IIRC
No longer a debate, he said in the announcement thread a pro one time in app purchase will be coming.
Great, that’s what I immediately went to look for since it’s what I had back when it was reddit sync.
now I’ll have to double check if I’m on reddit or lemmy, love how similar the experience is :)
edit: jumped ship!!! im now on infinity for lemmy!! didn’t know this was a thing. holy moly now I REALLY have to make sure if I’m on reddit or lemmy since I still have infinity for reddit installed
if you’re in sync, you’re on Lemmy. isn’t that why most of us are here?
that said it DOES feel like home. 😁
I can’t find it on play store
find what? infinity?
https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy/releases/tag/v0.0.7
How the heck do you log in? Cant find it anywhere.
On home page, top left corner the three lines, then top item on the menu it produces. Ive got sidebar enabled fyi, I’m not sure if that effects what I’m seeing.
Thanks. How the heck did I not see that “add account”. I think because it looked like a title, not an item.
Took me way too long to find it too… So I say we blame someone since mother none of us are stupid.
I keep getting a perpetual loading visual and it just states pending =(. I can’t wait to get my sync back!
Cancel and restarting the download did it for me.
It’s been an hour since this comment but just in case anyone else has the same, canceling and restarting allowed it to start downloading. For some reason the automatic attempt just hung on my device.
Yes, I finally figured it out about 3 m8n ago! Thanks for the help!
Nice to see ljdawson’s greed has not stopped. I paid for Sync Dev back in the day, whose license was tied to Google Play account. I purged Google from my life, so I no longer could get an update to the Sync app from Play Store. I provided him the proof of my purchase on his Discord server. He banned me after denying me providing an updated APK for the license I paid for. Never paid for Sync. Never will again.
I’m confused.
Were you not aware that almost every app on the play store is a limited licence? Like, you can’t move over to Windows and expect the license to carry over by default. You don’t pay for an app on Google’s store and automatically get it on iOS as well.
What you wanted would have required rebuilding the app to not use play services to verify that it was paid for. While it would be nice if a developer does that, exhibition expecting it to be the default approaches absurdity when it is most definitely not the norm.
You making the decision to degoogle is great, but that’s your choice. Expecting a developer to bend over backwards and rewrite part of their app for that is just silly. It’s fine to ask, nothing wrong there, but calling someone greedy because they said no? That’s not cool at all.
Developer was provided proof of purchase, and there was no rebuilding required. You think devs individually build and hardcore individual APKs per license and account? LOL. Play Store acts as a gatekeeper of APKs for apps, and if the account holder has paid for the license, Google allows an authorised download of the APK for paid app binary. This paid app binary can even be duplicated and pirated to other phones if wanted (which I never do) and it runs exactly 1:1, with the exception of apps that verify license via internet connection (Drastic DS, which I also paid for…)
Dev said no to a proof of purchase AND chose to ban me over it. The latter part is why I am pissed. Its not that the license carries, thats just his gratefulness (or lack of it) he would be free to engage in. I am not a loyal bootlicker.
Try that with any other software.
Tell EA you want to move your games from origin to steam.
Tell steam you want to move your games from steam to gog.
Tell gog you want to move your games to steam.
All of them will laugh at you.
Are you unhinged or delusional? APKs are deployable installation binaries. I am not moving licenses around. There are no different “platforms” involved. This is not Android to iOS, or Steam to Epic/Ubisoft. Your analogy is absolute pure trash.
The fact that you bring up “try with other software” is also the most dumb argument I have ever heard, and one that tells you are the one who has never purchased software and/or never dealt with professional company software support. Any sizeable and respected developer is reasonable to understand how system requirements work, and is not banning people for such a request.
If you are a Sync fanboy, go pay Laurence a thousand dollaridoos to piss me off. But stop acting lame.
You’re a troll. Gimme a second while I find the block user button in Sync.
Which I’m not a fanboy of, btw, I’m waiting for Boost.
Oh there it is! See you never!
The Play Store maintains your list of purchases. The dev would have had to build a new APK just for you with ads disabled.
On top of that, the APK wouldn’t be tied to you, so you could distribute it to others, possibly preventing sales. I’m sure you wouldn’t do that, but others might.
So yeah, it’s possible. But it’s reasonable for the dev to say no.
The Play Store maintains your list of purchases. The dev would have had to build a new APK just for you with ads disabled.
False. APK binaries, no matter paid or free, are built and deployed in a standard manner across devices. Google Play backend either has app bundles or APKs that are standard across Android, and the only differentiators are either DPI targets or ARM7/ARM8-64/i386 (last one is Intel Atom et al) ISA targets.
He would still have to build an APK without ads just for you.
That is not how APK builds for paid apps work. I suggest purchasing apps to actually know this stuff. I have purchased enough expensive apps in the past out of my college pocket allowance.
Your subscription is tied to Google. He would have to tear out the check for a subscription since you refuse to use the typical system.
Hence, he’d have to produce a build specifically for you without that code. This isn’t rocket science.
Paid app binaries are not the same as free app binaries. Free APK of Sync and paid APK of Sync Pro/Dev were not the same, so there was nothing on dev’s end to do. Do not play a losing game to win the argument.
I am aware that the APK is the same. BUT if he sent you the APK without changes, your purchases would not be activated because you refuse to use Google. In order to restore them, he’d have to manually enable them for you. Use your head.
