I like the interface, and have been a user of the reddit version for years...

I don’t understand the hate for charging for a product. I pay for a Mastodon client. If a Lemmy client that I really liked cost money and I felt the price was reasonable, I’d support that developer, too.
- I would pay for a good native iOS App. Memmy is nice but apps using web frameworks always have more limitations than any native one.
  
  Mlem is SwiftUI and FOSS! I know there are some issues with the current App Store build (weeps in janky scrolling) but we've got a major update hitting beta tomorrow and the App Store as soon as Apple will allow that's going to fix it.
  
  Try Mlem, it’s native iOS. It’s a work in progress but the user experience is great and the beta and active development seem promising.
  
  Try Avelon: https://testflight.apple.com/join/IzB0ZiBO
  This and Mlem are my favorites.
- A lot of Lemmy consists of FOSS enthusiasts, so something that's paid and proprietary wouldn't look as good in their eyes.
  There's also the fact that the free version of Sync uses (Google?) ad tracking to show you ads, so those people would also be upset.
  
  Lemmy instances run on servers which are funded by donations. I don't see how Sync (which is made by one developer) gets to be frowned upon because there's a price for ad removal. All FOSS projects are somehow funded, usually by donations. Nothing runs for free.
  If we get to use all the FOSS Lemmy apps is because someone put in the time and money to make it happen.
- I would happily pay for any FOSS app that I use, even for higher price than proprietary ones. I personally would prefer to use a FOSS app, if the UX is somewhat on par with the proprietary ones.
  That being said, no judgement to people who prefer proprietary app. We all have different priorities, hence have to make different tradeoffs.
- Many of us happily pay add removal fees on apps, but few of us pay $20. It stands out as excessive, especially in a very competitive arena like Lemmy apps where lots of good options have emerged.
- Oh yeah? What Mastodon client? I've just been using the 1st party client and I feel like it's pretty decent. Kinda curious how much better a client might be.
  
  Woolly is my client of choice. I used Ivory, too, but I really took to Woolly.
  Mammoth is a great free alternative but lacks some of the polish (and has a horrible app icon lol)
- I agree. I paid for a better Apollo experience back in the day, and the developer well deserved it.
- Nothing wrong at all with charging for the main version to support development as long as it's not gouging. I don't think this is gouging in the slightest.
  
  I don't think price gouging is even possible unless you control most or all of whatever resource. Sync is one of many apps to access Lemmy, and it isn't forcing anyone to pay or even use it.
- I still get put on blast on mastodon when I tell someone I use Ivory. Why the hell do they care?
- I don’t understand the hate for charging for a product
  I think the hate is mainly for the $100 lifetime payment. That's a lot for some people.
  
  $100 is lifetime Ultra, which is subscription otherwise. It's $20 for lifetime removal of ads.
  
  To build on what other people are saying, the $100 also is supposed to cover the cost of running servers and networks that the app has to use for the more unique, advanced features. Those are all things that will cost the developer to keep up and running - it's honestly nice that you even have the option to pay for lifetime since, once you've used the app for six years, the dev is going to start losing money off of your using the app.
  
  Yep, before regionalizing prices Lj was charging about 450 bucks in local currency. Minimum wage is about 1200.
- Many Americans (I'm one) cling to a variety of purity tests, and they struggle to grasp the bigger picture which could result in better outcomes for everyone.
  Black or white. Win or lose. It's a tiring cultural characteristic.
- It's not the charge money part. It's that it charges money and then still grabs and sells toms of your data. That's something the Lemmy crowd is super opposed to even in free products, but a subscription to have your data sold when the service itself (Lemmy) is hosted on a donation basis and does not cost the devs a cent to use is too much.
  Most of that opposition is directed at the Sync devs of course, not against some user who has made the decision that the proposal is good and decided to use Sync.
  
  It literally doesn't do that. If you pay for it, the ad code doesn't even initialize, thus performing no tracking. And crash analytics are optional.
  At least, if we trust Laurence. I wish it was open source so we could verify, but I choose to trust him.

Oh no $20 to remove ads from an app that was made by one guy as his full time job. I'm proud to support anyone who works hard to make a more accessible, more enjoyable experience.
Oh no ads track you! My full time job is literally managing Google ads. We barely tracked you personally as it was. We could anonymously target generally the things you were interested in buying or what you've recently been looking at online.
And then Google crippled Google Analytics and it's a shell of what it once was, and your data is even more anonymous!
If I work for a lawnmower company I couldn't give a shit who you are or what you do online, all I care about is if you're thinking about buying a lawnmower, so my client can show you what he's got to offer. Then you can ignore the ads if you don't like the product or its price point. That's what Google does.
I'd rather that than be shown "Generic Chinese cashgrab mobile game ad that doesn't actually reflect the gameplay" ads.
The guy worked hard to make possibly the best UI/UX on the platform. Either pay for his work or let him get the (barely any) money from showing ads to pay for his time. Either way, he worked for it.
Do you work full time for free too?
- I don't think most people worry about lawnmowing company. They worry about Google.
  What google essentially sale is manipulation: they make money by changine your behavior, which is a extermely dangerous business in a democratic society. What makes it even more dangerous are
  It is a for-profit company, which means people with more money have more power to manipulate the general public
  It caters to U.S. government (since it is based in the U.S.), which is one of the most imperialistic governments today, with a terrible record of over-surveillance.
  Everything can be hacked, all the information that is stored will be leaked sooner or later. And these data can easily fall into the wrong hand; in fact, they tends to fall into the wrong hand.
  
  That's all perfectly sensible things to be concerned about. But given that we're talking about an android app - if you're eligible to use the app, Google almost certainly already has all your data anyways.
  Yeah I'm sure there's a tiny subsection of the people in these discussion who have custom ROMs flashed, but the vast majority are posting about Google tracking them on a google phone - or (even more annoyingly) posting about it from a phone that doesn't even support the app, and so doesn't remotely affect them
- This is a great post - I agree with your take.
- There are companies that aggregate all the data from Google and other services to match your anonymous data to your actual person so they can match your address name and all personal information to what you do online
  
  @ZippyZiggurat @drekly, it's called create incommings by surveillance advertising, I call it Spyware as is.
  They sell your data to third parties, which apart of a violation of your privacy rights, is a big security risk, nobody can control how your data is traty and protected, several cases of dataleaks with even bank and medical data prove this. There are other methodes to create incommings which don't invade privacy.
  Not this way
  (Test made with Blacklight https://themarkup.org/blacklight )
  
  Tell me more
  
  That's cause they're all about my self interest🥰
- The ads are what supports the developer. $20 to remove them is just a better bulk upfront deal than waiting for fractions of pennies to come together over time. The $100 version is a straight up grift though. I cannot overstate this, the ads are what supports the dev. There is nobody here not getting paid for their work.
  
  The $100 version is for perpetual access to a cloud-based service. As in something that is a recurring cost to the dev.
  
  I might be wrong, but the $99 one is for people who want to be a moderator of instances. I just want to doomscroll while taking a shit. So I kicked him $20. I think I paid the same amount for the reddit version, so 🤷
- Where/when exactly do the ads pop up? I've been using for a few days now and I haven't paid anything yet I see no ads. Is it a Beta thing?

A Sync user loves Lemmy enough to pay for it and isn’t wrapped up in drama spun by FOSS advocates. Be proud.
That being said, I love FOSS.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software?wprov=sfla1
  Had to look it up
  Almost thought it was an app 🤣

Yeah nah fuck that Sync hate, I don't use it personally but if someone wants to use it, all the best to them and have a jolly ride in the lemmy part of the fediverse
- I used many Lemmy Android clients and after trying out Sync it is so good. It is not FOSS but it is high quality. Other FOSS apps are not mature enough yet and are unestable. I hope one day a FOSS one can compete and have high quality and I will switch
- "I don't use it myself" LIAR, BURN THE HERETIC
  /s

I like sync because I don't have to interact with or smell the poors. Good job sync team 👍
- Agreed. Get your grubby FOSSy hands off my amazing app.
  
  Actually I'd invite the FOSS developers to learn from UI of sync. If they get better, I'll switch to FOSS apps, I'd contribute to FOSS if I had the time, but I don't and their UI does feel unpolished. Used liftoff and jerboa before sync.
- Perfect response. I not usually one who is made fun of for being bougie, but why not pay for an app that I've used for nearly a decade and can easily afford?
- If affording a cheap app is rich in your eyes...I have bad news for you.
  
  Not everyone is made of money. In my country 20 USD is a whole month's rent.
- But... This analogy doesn't work at all. Sync isn't a community, it's a client. So you're interacting with the same people.
  
  It's a joke

Welcome buddy. Welcome all sync users. The greatest part of the decentriverse is it's not yours or mine, it's no one's. Do as you please.

I found out about Lemmy BECAUSE of Sync. I'm a huge FOSS supporter but that doesn't mean I'll trash anything that isn't open source.
Much more importantly, I'd really like to see Lemmy succeed against data mining trash like Reddit. Let's not dissuade potential converts coming over from Reddit with this gatekeeping nonsense. These manipulative parasitic social media companies are the real enemy here. Sync is one guy making one app with a one time purchase. Everyone is still welcome to use open source apps, the website or any other means of accessing the community. Sync is not your enemy.
- I found out about Lemmy BECAUSE of Sync
  I had heard of lemmy in the days before the reddit blackout, but only when ljdawson said he was considering building sync for lemmy, did I actually join up.
  I tried other clients before sync was actually out, and voyager is pretty good - but sync feels like home.

Why do people hate sync anyways
- It's cool to hate it, for a lot of people who moved to fediverse early, it's a matter of FOSS software and an ideology. Everyone has a flexing point in their ideology, early adopters of fediverse can't be flexible at closed source products. I personally draw my flexing boundary at large capitalist companies. Sync is developed by one guy and tbh with a way pretty UI than any of the FOSS software has (my personal opinion) so I like it. And I use it. But I understand the ideological point of FOSS everything, but I don't understand people who want FOSS everything but they contribute nothing.
  
  I understand why people want to use FOSS, but I don't understand being annoyed that a non FOSS project costs money. It doesn't take away your choice and only adds more choice and gives FOSS devs a target to make their apps better. I only see upsides to having more choices of clients. This isn't some huge mega corporations trying to monopolize on a platform, it's a small solo dev that's making a client for a platform with an open standard that cannot be closed off by design. There's no downside to having more competition. It's not like sync will put the FOSS options out of business since they're free hobby projects to begin with.
  
  This guy... He gets it.
  
  Once I was exactly like you described: "people who want FOSS everything but they contribute nothing". Indeed, it was really bothering me to not contribute anything, but the reason was I didn't have much confidence about my skills. I slowly break that barrier of lacking confidence.
  If there are people out there like who I was, please just go and commit anything on any project, whatever it is, doesn't matter.
  
  Cool for people who think their code is good enough to let other people read it. I code for 20 years professionally now, not reached that point yet.
- I don't hate it. What rubs me the wrong way is the $20 ask to remove ads, when alternative apps exists that don't charge or even have ads yet. It feels far too steep for what it's designed to handle, compared to Reddit. $5 would have been reasonable as an early bird deal, then $10 afterwards would have made more sense. Then add a tip jar for those who feel generous.
  
  It's a bit of a catch-22 because while Lemmy and the Sync for Lemmy userbase is small the dev needs to ask for more to keep the lights on.
  If there was a larger pool of users who might potentially subscribe then the dev wouldn't have to charge as much.
  But from a user perspective it might seem like a smaller/newer platform like Lemmy doesn't justify a higher cost.
  For me personally I am happy to pay it because I used and loved Sync for years on Reddit and having had the experience with creating a Reddit app the dev has been able to provide a more complete/polished interface for Lemmy than possibly any other app available right now.
  
  But it is $30 on my end to remove the ads on sync. I completely agree with you, and I had sync for years. I am currently using Jerboa, and it fits my needs.
  
  As a sync user, I agree, $20 is a steep price for what lemmy is currently offering. If I'm sure I'm gonna staying on lemmy for years (like I did for reddit), im probably gonna pay. But only time will tell. But so far the als I've seen are really not that frequent or intrusive, and I'm just happy I have sync back tbh.
  
  You just answered yourself there's alternative apps. If you don't want to pay for kid ads go use one of them. You don't have to use sync
  
  What rubs me the wrong way is the $20 ask to remove ads
  I would feel the same way if Sync was the one and only option to view Lemmy on mobile but it's not. You can use all the other FOSS apps which don't have ads.
  By the way you can install a global adblocker on your phone to remove all (well, most let's say) ads across your device. I use one and don't see any ads on Sync, just a blank square.

F that noise. I'm here and active because Sync came out, and I've become used to its interface over the years. I'll eventually try the other FLOSS apps but I'm here learning and enjoying first.
- Yeah, op, don't feel shamed about using sync, it's a great app that's worth using. I use it. Lots of us use it. The hate is a knee-jerk reflex to the sudden influx of excited reddit sync users who have migrated to lemmy and talked a lot about sync. I think FOSS users were expecting a FOSS-type option and were shocked when that wasn't the case. Then you also had users who were just mad that it would cost more to be used here than it was on reddit.
  No one hates you for using sync.

Sync is what got me to really enjoy using Reddit. I'm proud to be a Sync user. lol .

I’m over here bouncing between Memmy and Voyager solely because I miss Apollo.
It’s amazing how much an interface matters thought I enjoyed Reddit when really I enjoyed Apollo.
My point is, I don’t know what Sync is but if it’s what you like then hell yeah use the shit out of it.
- Sync was a great app for Reddit. I used it as my main for a while before I got my first iPhone. I honestly don't understand all the hate for it here. There are several FOSS choices for Lemmy apps if anyone doesn't like it.
- Sync was Apollo but on Android.
  Not precisely, they weren’t 1-for-1 clones. But when I moved from Android to iOS I was easily able to adapt to Apollo from Sync. Very similar visuals, very similar gestures, similar developer devotion.
- Sync was not only my favorite app for reddit, but IMO the best UI/UX of any app I've ever used. I enjoyed Connect until Sync came out, but now that it has I feel like I can finally enjoy Lemmy as much as reddit. Everyone will have their preferences and prices they're willing to pay, but $20 absolutely seems reasonable to me for how much I use it lol.
  
  That is exactly how I felt about Apollo and the apps I mentioned earlier are absolutely allowing me to enjoy Lemmy.
  I absolutely did not understand how to consume Lemmy before. But now… now I do.
- Memmy is so fucking good.

How I feel using, and liking, Jerboa
- Jerboa is a cute lil app
  
  Couldn't login on jerboa did they fix it? I've been using connect.
  
  Minimal design, easy on the eyes. Reminds me of rif. It's absolutely perfect.
- I'm on Jerboa too, what's the problem with it? I like the rat
  
  IDK what people are complaining about, the UI is good.
- I installed it a while ago and I'm loving it ngl. (I never used sync tho. Was a Infinity and Boost user)
- I can't use apps that lag during simple scrolling so I never liked Jerboa. Quickly switched to Liftoff and now will switch to Sync I guess.
  Also Jerboa has too few settings and that annoying post button that I rarely use stuck on screen.

I love FOSS but I too use Sync. Used it on Reddit for the better part of a decade and it's made Lemmy more accessible for me and also some friends.
In the end if people are happy to pay for a client, which then builds the membership of Lemmy communities - what's the big fucking deal? I'm very happy to be here and very happy to continue supporting a dev that does fantastic work.
- Also using Sync. The thing is, I'm sick and tired of being told how I should need to interact with something. This isn't an argument against FOSS at all btw. I also pay a non-FOSS one-man-shop for my RSS reader.
  My main thing is I want to bend the web to my preferences instead of the other way around. If devs like this are going out of their way to do that I'm going to make it worth their while.
  Shit, I even pay the guy who keeps the Chumby servers alive. Just so I can have a flash-baswd Star Trek themed clock face active on my nightstand.

People are ridiculous.
It's ok to like the things you like, as long as you're not like, directly hurting people.
If RiF made a LiF, I'd buy their ad free version too. I like the UI/UX. Connect is a good app, but it's just not quite the same.

I wanted RIF to support Lemmy
- is it confirmed it won't? sync is okay, but RiF was simply better
  
  RIF creator said he was developing for tildes, not lemmy.
  I wouldn't say they'll never move to lemmy but that appears to be the case for the time being.
  
  I would be super stoked if the creator of RiF created something for Lemmy. But to Sync's credit, I've been able to mess around a little with the settings and make my feed look like RiF in dark mode.
  I won't hold my breath for RiF making a comeback (LiF??). However if it does, I'm all in. It was a really sad day when I had to say goodbye to it.

Same boat, I like FOSS, using linux for 20+ years yada yada android custom ROM hack stuff what not, but 10 years ago I tested all the reddit app, Sync was far superior so I bought it for like 3$. Now Sync for Lemmy is an impressive experience compared to Jerboa or Connect for instance, so I forked the 20$ for the noads version. Dev looks like a great guy, I have no problem with this.
- ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
  
  np my friend 👍🏻
- For how much time I spent using Apollo, I really got a massive bargain for just $5.00. I’m not surprised that people would pay $20 if the app is good and they use Lemmy often.

The FOSS idealist fantasy land is just as cringe as all the "it's only $20" bootlicking loyalists. Just another dramatic console war, courtesy of a bored internet and slow news cycle
- It's now bootlicking to be okay paying for something. Okay.
  
  for real lol - you'd think Sync users were getting the logo tatoo'd on their forehead the way people are acting
  At this point I'm just sick of hearing about it. If I promise to delete Sync from my phone, will you all shut the fuck up about it???
  
  How dare you be okay spending $20 that will provide you thousands of hours of enjoyment over the course of the next decade?!
- I was pissed about the yearly subscription, but $20 for life for an app that I will likely use for nearly a thousand hours per year really isn't too bad.

While the cost and ads are enough to keep me using the free options, everyone should just use whatever they want.
More Lemmy users = more content on Lemmy.

If Apollo would introduce Lemmy support I would immediately pay for it. Even though I am actually really happy with Memmy.

Huh. I call Lemmy users "Lemmers". Is "Lemmies" the agreed term?
- I think «lemmings» is more common.
  https://lemmy.ml/post/59721

I disagree with the rest of the people itt. Downvote me NOW
- I agree with this comment.

I don't see why people are so against the developer using ads. If you don't like them, you can remove them yourself with an adblocker, you don't need the dev to do that. If you consider ads an ethical violation, you shouldn't see using an adblocker as unethical.
- Or get this. Pay to remove them. Should people not be compensated for their hard work?
  
  That's not really my point. If people are demanding that everything should be free, they can just make them free and stop whining about it.

I set up sync to look as much like Alexandrite as I could, its a nice bit of consistency when I switch to desktop from mobile and vice versa.
- Not enough people know about alexandrite. It's definitely my favorite web interface.
  
  I personally like MLMYM more, but you do you.
  
  I haven't tried many, maybe one other than Alexandrite and "stock" but I like that it uses more of my screen than just the middle.

I used to love Sync, but hear me out: Infinity is FOSS and it currently is much nicer and easier to use.
I'm grateful to the creator of Sync for bringing over the app to the Fediverse, and I'll never begrudge anyone for sticking with it or even paying an outrageous price to not have to see ads even though Lemmy has none to begin with. All I'm saying is, you just switched from Reddit to Lemmy, now's the perfect time to try something new.
- I'm a long time Sync supporter and paid for ad-free Sync for Lemmy, but I can agree that Infinity is definitely a good competitor. I'm juggling them both right now, and they're both fantastic.
- Infinity actually has the combo of features (settings) I want. I couldn't replicate my Joey (reddit app) in Sync so I tried Infinity and it's exactly what I was looking for

It's weird how upset people are getting over memes about sync. It's a shame because the memes are pretty funny.
None of the FOSS advocates actually care that you use Sync unless they're going to your house and uninstalling it when your not looking.
And there's a lot of misconceptions about free software. Free Software is opposed to proprietary software, not paid software. All projects, whether free or proprietary require compensation of some kind, or else they wouldn't exist.
There is a legitimate debate around if proprietary software is ethical. The whole existence of the free software movement is because the proponents of it saw proprietary software as unethical.

Jerboa has been treating me right so far
- I was using both jerboa, liftoff before sync came along. But my problem with both was effectively less dense information. And hard to navigate comments. The more I have to scroll the more I dislike it. Sync is good at packing information densely if you wish to do so. But also good at spacing it out if you like that layout.
- Jerboa wouldn't let me save any posts or comments. Other than that it worked great. I'm using sync now as I had the sync for Reddit back in the day and love it.
  
  I can save posts and comments on it fine.

Wait, is it looked down on for some reason? I've used sync for years, and am glad it's back.
Edit- nevermind, found another content explaining it.

Shame shame shame (Kidding ofc)

I present you beautiful and FOSS infinity
https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy/releases
- I rolled my own Infinity for Reddit after the Great API block. It's so inferior to Sync.

I am curious why you like about it. I was a Relay user, and it was the only one that was really good for me. I didn't care for sync, it seemed ok, but not quite good enough.
But after moving to Lemmy I went with Jerboa and Thunder. Both are good enough. What could sync possibly have that you pay for?
I know for relay I miss: auto mute. Everything is mute by default. Then slow and fastforward for all media, and a download button.
- not OP, but the main selling point of Sync is an absolutely top notch buttery smooth and good-looking UI, adhering to Google's Material Design.
  it looks and feels like a Google-made app, only it's made for nerds, so it's more configurable and maybe a bit bolder in terms of innovation.
  in geneal this means: no loose ends, no jarring or lazy design, no janky transitions, and focus on ease of use (configurable gestures, bottom screen nav, presets, clever set-up tour, well thought out settings...).
  of course you'll always find this one niche feature that someone Absolutely Needs which it doesn't have... and that's ok. can't have them all. but it covers 90 % of the bases and in terms of polish, you'd be hard pressed to find better. incl. Apollo, in my opinion (though it was some years ago that i used it).
  
  It is comments and posts! How much buttery smooth do I need for that? I cannot really tell the difference at all between it and what I am using now. I tried it and was very underwhelmed.
  This is simple text, how hard can it be?
- Sync is the only 3rd party app I have ever used that actually has fantastic material you design. I have a pixel phone and quite like material you look. I prefer all my apps support this superior look, other apps try but none get anywhere close to that amount of polish Sync has.
  TLDR: Sync is fucking gorgeous and no alternatives come close to being as sexy
  
  I am trying to figure out what it is I would be looking at when I am looking at posts and comments, lol.
  How does that work? Have a screen shot?
- Interesting. I adding sync to my phone and tried it out. I dont like the large images, so it was good to be able to change it to small thumbnails. I am all about the text, not the pictures unless I click on them.
  At that point I saw no real difference between that and my current client. Except the font was too small, but I am assuming I could change it.
  The tablet thing is new though, I am curious about that.

Isn’t this exactly what people should want though? Both FOSS and commercial options?
If you don’t want to pay, there is an option for that.
If you want to pay and (in theory), get a better experience, there would be an option for that.

Google forces devs to use their billing platform and to not build a seperate "pro" app to ensure their dominance in the Android space
Devs begrudgingly listen to Google in order to keep their app on Android's dominant app repository
I literally cannot tell these two apart

Oh no, not Lemmy!

Its called lemmings
- And when they act sour, they're called lemons!

who is going to attk you for sync? all i see is ppl spamming about sync. it's fucking annoying. I do not care about sync. I care about these shitposts
- Have you heard about our Lord and Savior "Sync"?

Sigh, any way to ban these useless shitposts

More like when they find out you paid for sync ultra

I don't have as nice of a ui as you op, but wanted to say I'm happy for you :)

Because my dumbass had to look it up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software?wprov=sfla1

I like it so much I bought the ads free version, it's a great app

So while I understand the love for FOSS and an Ad Free Experience, somebody still has to pay for the server time. Now I know this doesnt exactly work in THIS scenario with Sync, but couldnt ads and paid subs in Apps be a good way for Lemmy/KBin instances for be financed without having to rely on donations?
For Example, imagine if Lemmy.ml had their own app with their own experience and if you wanted to support it without actually handing over money, now you could use ads in the mobile experience and feel a little better about your lurking.
Just a thought.
- This is the thought process to why reddit shut down third party apps

Damn these sync users. Infinity for lemmy is gonna be way better
- You can already use it. https://codeberg.org/Bazsalanszky/Infinity-For-Lemmy/releases 👍