1y ago

Sync Ultra OTP is available for 109,99 €

254 comments

With that price I feel like the dev has 0 faith in lemmy getting very big and feels like they need to capitalize on the currently few users to make back costs. I mean, not even an early access price considering its in beta still
- Yeah this feels like early adopter tax. Get your money off people who don't blink at stuff like $100 for a beta app for a small reddit that's literally just a front end.
  Then lower the price slowly. Like I feel like there are more Lemmy apps than Reddit ones. It's pretty gauling to charge so much and essentially take everything from server owners by putting this up front for people trying it from Reddit.
  
  Server owners aren't the only people who are working for free.
  There are people that have made skins for Lemmy, do they get paid? Mods as well, not to mention the Lemmy devs and admins. And all of this is nothing without people posting content, are you going to pay them too?
  If all one has to do to try and diminish someone asking for a price for their services here is to point out someone else on Lemmy that wants the money too, then everyone looks like a jerk.
  Don't forget, the whole reason Lemmy is so successful these past few months is because the work these devs do wasn't appreciated on Reddit, and we all came here instead. Are you saying all these redfugees should leave and take their money to X instead?
- With that price I feel like the dev has 0 faith in lemmy getting very big
  It feels kind of the opposite to me.
  Going back and checking my Google account history, I paid $1 for Sync Pro. In 2012. And was using it up until last month. In retrospect, that was far too low a price for the utility I got out of the app for literally years.
  If anything, it feels like the dev has learned that lesson and has priced the lifetime option where it's actually sustainable for them if Lemmy stays around.
  
  I agree. The original price for a lifetime use is maybe a bit too low. The original sync pro prices, but yearly instead, might be a solution. Not monthly. That is so messed up.
  
  Well why not 1usd per month subscription. If 10,20,30 thousand of us subscribed, then he'd have a stable scaling income as the app grows in usage.
  Edit. Thousand
- The literal opposite. I'm working on this fulltime and giving it everything I can.
  
  And this is why I don't mind the cost increase from old Sync.
  I bought Sync Pro all the way back in 2014, and considering how long it's been since then, plus the sub-2 month delivery time for Sync for Lemmy, I think you've more than earned an ultra sub from me!
  Thanks for the hard work.
  
  Hey I just want to say thanks for the app. Used sync regularly back when I used to browse Reddit and it must've been the most used app on my phone for years. Sync for Lemmy feels just as good I'll probably switch to the iap for ad free but for now I took the yearly sub just to throw you some money.
  Had been waiting for this since you announced it haha.
- That's very cynical point of view. This is for the Ultra version, which incurs recurring cost to the developer for providing extra features which requires running some servers on their side. I myself spent that much just for running a Lemmy server for two months. They still have one time $20 option that don't include services that require the external servers.
- Exactly. Suck the early adopter users dry just in case lemmy doesn't get huge. I mean, yes there was dev time for this app, but of importing your syncreddit press into this app is any indication, it wasn't a rewrite but merely an adaptation of API.
  This is most definitely the dev seeing how much he can milk early on. Good for him if it works. I mean the app framework is amazing, don't get me wrong. But not at these prices.
  
  Not milking anything. I want to work on this long term
  
  Wait, importing what?

God damn that’s expensive.
- Yeah, this Dev seems to be counting on the idea that everyone in lemmy will forget that there are perfectly good free apps out there, and that all the other 3rd party Reddit devs are working on their own lemmy versions.
  
  Been very happy with Connect.
  
  I think he's actually counting on the fact that people will be using this app daily for the next decade, just like they did with Sync for reddit.
  
  He would have had an edge had the released sooner. But now there's too much free competition.
  
  Not providing a lifetime purchase at the initial release, then gradually giving 2 updates that disables ads and then ultra permanently, seems like the dev is greedy. Probably that's why they didn't have good terms with Reddit in the first place. Who knows.
- Way too expensive.
- Yeah it is a bit too much.

Lol. I uh. Guess I didn't want a one time payment option after all.
- I'm pretty sure there's still going to be an ad free one time payment though, Sync ultra has more than just ad free browsing. Personally I only want to remove the ads so if it's priced like the pro version was then I'll be happy
  
  It's $20 USD to just remove ads permanently.
  
  The ad-free version is already available für 21,99 €. Not going to lie, I expected the old reddit prices and was going to buy Ultra lifetime for 33 €...
  
  There's an option to remove only ads as well in the profile picker menu. Costs about $25 if my conversion is right, lifetime.
- There's still a one-time remove ads/tracking price which is €23 for me, varies by region. The lifetime Sync Ultra is for cloud back-up features, can be ignored.

I know I'm cheap and I know this app is great and is a lot of work but fuck, this is expensive. Subscriptions are the worst model capitalism can offer. And the one time payment price is ridiculous, I can't afford that.
- Realistically it's the only way he can sustain the development costs with such a small userbase. I've subscribed monthly to show my support. It's not really that much money considering how much I use sync.
  
  I did yearly and I'll probably get lifetime once we're out of beta. 18 bucks a year is the price for 1 month of Netflix, which ain't that bad at all.
  
  These models are designed in such a way that those who can afford to support do, and those who can't afford to still have access through the free version.
  They certainly don't expect everyone to purchase ultra, let alone lifetime.
- that is one time payment for sync ultra.
  there is also a one time payment to just remove ads, at 20$.
  
  I feel as though this information is left intentionally absent in this post.
  App development ain't cheap and lifetime subscriptions are an incredible deal if you like the features and intend to keep using the app for the next decade plus. But you've got to look at it that way or else it's not worth it.
  
  And most of the ultra features are things that require hosting or external paid apis.
- the free one works well. and I got an adblocker I think

$50 wouldn't have nearly as much of a negative reaction. $100 is awfully steep for a community as small as Lemmy.
But I'm glad the yearly sub is only $17, so I may get that instead.
- I personally would never pay a subscription for a 3rd party Lemmy app. That defeats some part of why I moved to Lemmy to begin with.
- It's not "only" $17, it's $17 every single year, indefinitely. In six years you'll be over the $100 price it's at now.
  Subscription services are a scam meant to quietly part a large population of their money without their realizing it.
  
  First, $17 is a lot more affordable for some people. We don't all have $100 we can just throw at a app whenever we like.
  Second, a cheap yearly subscription is not a big deal to some people, especially those that want to help the dev out.
  And thirdly, subscriptions are not scams unless you're tricked into signing up for one.
  
  I'll be dead in 6 years.
- It's steep because Lemmy is a small community
  
  A small community of people who are probably mostly not interested in paying quite this much for an app.
  If this is what it costs to continue development then I'm going to be surprised if enough people pay it to ensure its long term viability as a business in the first place.

at that price you could afford the reddit api.. not that i'd want to

So I'm not an app developer, so I might be completely off base, but I don't really understand a lot of the arguments against this.
Firstly, there's an ad free one time cost that in my opinion seems very fair. Secondly, as I'm looking through the feature for Ultra, most of the features seem to be things that require an external server. I'm not sure how push notifications work so I can't comment on it, but syncing settings across devices for example doesn't happen at the instance level. That kind of thing could only be done through a server owned by the dev. However, it is very likely that the dev doesn't own a server, and is instead renting on a VPS, which is a subscription for them. So in order to provide these particular services, the dev has to pay a subscription. So would it not make sense that those that enjoy the benefits of this subscription the dev pays, also have to pay a subscription? In my mind that simply seems fair, in order to support a dev that has clearly put a lot of time and effort into making a great app.
The user base for Lemmy is significantly smaller than Reddit. The dev needs a smaller number of people to be able to support the operating costs of the app (as well as the wellbeing of the dev) which means that necessarily a different (and steeper) pricing model would be necessary.
I do not think it's fair to claim that Lemmy API access is free and therefore there are no operating costs, because there's more to the app than API calls. It is indeed correct that API access is free, which seems to me to be the precise reason why there exists a free version of the app that you don't have to pay for in the first place. All API calls within the app are free. There are no paywalled Lemmy API calls, at least from what I can tell. But again if I'm wrong I'll admit it if someone can inform me.
- I think you're spot on and it applies in general to why we see a trend of subscriptions. When we all got our first smartphones, most apps were local and it didn't cost the developer more if they had 1M downloads compared to if they had 50 downloads.
- The thing is as always comparing. For that price there are things out there that had much bigger development and costs and offer better stuff, plus he had recouped most of the costs already when it was for reddit, yes there was new development of course but it wasn't a new app. Apart from that this is not a service with big recurring expenses, the only exception is the cloud functionality and let's be honest that also probably is cheap considering the size of the backups.
  In any case I believe that the solution is as simple as not using it if people are not interested.
- If the dev was fair, he would split the revenues of all the models with the instances to keep them alive. The free API call doesn't matter if the instances close.

I think the ultra price for reddit was like 30 dollars for lifetime. 100+ bucks just seems like way to much.
- Its $179 Australian. Absolutely not worth it to me.
  
  For an app that you can't even make a post from yet. I don't care who you are, $180 for an app still missing basic functionality is always going to be a hard sell.
  
  Eh.
  People have been spoiled by the app store. Like I agree its a lot of money, but it also takes a lot of money to live, and if someone is a solo developer for a living then they depend on software sales. Lifetime purchases are tough. Once you get that money, the potential for more money from that customer is gone. Unless you follow a traditional software licensing model where you buy a version and upgrading past a major release requires another purvhase.
  Im pretty sure he LJ has taken into account the heavily decreased sales potential of the lemmy market. Hes going to make substantially less sales, so he needs those sales to be worth it, especially if its a lifetime purchase. Its hard to strike a balance between worth it for the customer and worth it for the dev. Ideally the lifetime cost pushes would be purchasers towards an ongoing subscription while still providing value for both parties.
  I agree $179aud us too much, and I wont be paying that myself, but I feel for LJ at the same time. Its not going to be easy making the money he may need to continue developing at the same rate.
- I think Sync might end up hosting a Lemmy instance for ultra users. It could help user experience quite a bit
  
  That wouls be a fine value add, especially if it integrated features into the server code that were open sourced and down streamed. That would add some real weight to that purchase price.
  
  What would happen if you stop your subscription then? Lose your account?

My last app, Now for Reddit, charged $4 to unlock all the features of the app, including no ads.
- Lemmy is still small. The dev can't rely on tens of thousands of people on lemmy to buy Sync for $1-2 each like he could on reddit. The cost must be spread out on fewer users.
  
  Well. I think it kinda works the other way around, I don't think many people are going to spend a whopping $20 for an app to use a social media platform that's not really taking off yet

wow isn't that like 6 years of subscription? so expensive
- I mean, I used sync for reddit for like 10 years.
  
  Yeah, but Lemmy’s a newer platform and might not stick around for 6 years, IF it takes off like Reddit did. $100 is a bit too steep, if I’m being honest.
  
  But it's not Sync, is Lemmy..
- Yea something in the 3ish year sub price would be more reasonable
- 8 years if you invest the money and get a 10% roi each year. Not that I was going to.

Just use FOSS apps for Lemmy. There are plenty good ones. Thanks to all devs and contributors!
- Yup, I have the beta versions of voyager, memmy, and mlem on my phone and just alternately switch to whichever app gets a new update; or if one happens to be buggy or unstable.
  
  The only thing missing for me in Voyager is push notifications. Anyone know how to make that happen on iOS?
  But as much as I like voulyager, if Apollo converted to a Lemmy app tomorrow, I would def pay sync prices no ads.
  
  Try out arctius (fennec) app. It's also a good one to follow. Though admittedly still incomplete
- Shout-out to Thunder and Liftoff. I prefer the former, but Liftoff is great as well.

Nope

That's wild. Like man I'm impressed with Sync and think it's great but you'd have to be using it for 7 years for this to be worth it...Lemmy is so new you'd be mad to be making a gamble like this.
- On the contrary, if you're an avid sync users in the past (I did for 8 years), if you don't make the gamble now, then it'll be even more likely for the app to fail and go away due to the lack of funding.
  
  At this price it probably will anyway because so few people will pay it.
  
  With that high price and no regional pricing for a barebone app, if it failed, it's on him. Only sucker pay for promises.

I pass

Even Apollo Ultra was $50, and people thought that was expensive…
- I would pay sync prices for Apollo ultra if it were to convert to Lemmy.

₹9900!!!
I bought 2 smartphones for my friends last month. Combined total cost of those was roughly ₹10200.
- Sounds like I should buy my phones in India.

Just run your phone through a free private DNS server and never see an ad again. I use dns.adguard.com.
None of my free apps show any ads on my phone.
- I do this. But I would still like to pay the dev. Just not those prices,
  
  There's also the ad removal option for 20$ one time. If you don't need the other features of ultra.
- I mean sure, but that doesn't support the hard work the developer or into this... So...
- I do that too on my Samsung phone. Do you know a way to do it on iPhone?
  
  Check out their instructions. You've got a couple options:
  https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html
  
  You either need to set the DNS in your phone settings somewhere or route all traffic through a VPN (should be a setting somewhere too). You can then use a VPN where you can set the DNS. I use tailscale for this
- I just can't get myself to trust an ex Russian, offshore company with my dns traffic
  
  Nextdns.io works well, and lets you customize tons of features. Alternatively, you can run a pihole on pretty much any spare computer to work as an home adblocker. You can also route up to an adblocking dns with it to double up.
  You want to get extra wild, setup a wireguard vpn server at home after that, and have your phone auto connect to it when you leave your home wifi.
  No more ads ever.

Lifetime wasn't available when I subscribed. :(
I assume that's $100 USD in America?
It's expensive, but Sync is literally the best app on my phone, and has been that way for a long time. I'd consider it.
- Message LJ on Discord and he'll refund you so you can switch to Lifetime.

Yikes

then just pay the onetime $20 to remove ads instead
- There are ads? 🤔 Laughs in Adguard
  
  Imagine using Adguard laughs in Control D with RAM Servers
- PiHole ftw
  
  how do

Yea no.

My favorite lemmy app is firefox :^)
But no really, what kind of shit is this? Pay 110€ to browse social media that already has no ads?
Yeah using and loving lemmy is in part due to the solid web UI and because it doesn't nag me like a removed to install some app unlike reddit did. Same reason why I loved libreddit as my preffered frontend. Whatever sync is doing is outrageous, not getting even a "try" download from me.

I feel like the dev is trying to cash out, his apps good but reddit screwed him so I do kinda understand but he's priced me out.

Or use one of the myriad of other ad-free apps?
I don't get the fanboi-ism, it didn't blow my socks off when I was on Reddit either. I used Slide and RIF.
- Sync is polished with an experienced dev. All of the other free Lemmy apps have some kind of compromise. They're fine, but they definitely feel like they are free.
  
  IDK, I've been pretty impressed with Connect, I haven't had it bug on me yet, it's really configurable, and looks good.
- I bought the top of the line Sync for Reddit when it finally rolled to the new look. Had 0 regrets.
  For the amount of time I spent on (cough) reddit, the value I drew per dollar spent was solid. I got greater happiness from that than... alcohol, a nice dinner, or food delivery (which I never use).
  But those are my points of comparison. Early in life, I worried about affording the next tank of gas or a large mechanical expense. During that period, ad free would be ambitious and top of the line would be... a family present to me around an important event. And how do you explain that?
  It's the baseline and budget. Comparing to FOSS it may not rate. Comparing to a night out... I get more from the app over its lifetime.
  If people can afford Sync, hopefully they (we) can afford to donate to keep the servers running?
- those ad free apps will probably add ads later down the line if I had to guess. maybe they won't but devs gotta eat
  
  For the foss apps, i doubt it. People will just fork them if the app development direction does not agree with the community direction.
- Sync looks like the apple, Tesla/musk of some.

It's a bit steep for my finances.

Yikes, that's really steep and puts a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, tbh. :(
- This is just for ultra. Ad free is a one time payment
  
  Got it, thanks!

It feels expensive, but I'm considering the annual. If I compare it to Netflix or Spotify. I spent way more time on this app
- Why is everyone comparing it so a service that has a ton of overhead like having to pay artists, tons of servers and storage, etc..
  
  I just look at it in time spent. I spent more time in de fediverse because of this app. I don't want ads, I feel like it's worth it. Especially the pine Time, 20-25 euro no ads option.
  
  I think they are comparing it to the value they get from the service as an individual. As a consumer, I don't care about the company's overhead. I would only care if I get my money's worth with the service I'm paying for.
- I'm considering annual too, but I'm waiting for two things before pulling the trigger. First is push notifications, second is the release of Boost for Lemmy. I want to compare features and prices before making a decision.
  Right now there is no other app that feels as nice as Sync, and I don't mind supporting that, but Boost is a worthy challenger. And I could only really justify paying for one.

I don't think it can display upvote and downvote counts separately. For me I consider that useful information. Also, my comments written while using it don't show in my profile, so it seems a little glitchy still. And it can't create posts yet. I'll stick with the kbin PWA for now.

Yeah I'll just take the non intrusive ads on my feed.
- Fuck that. I'll take no ads and no gouging. Choice is the whole reason you are here and not in reddit still.
  
  Sounds like you're doing exactly what you'd like to do... which is what everyone else is also doing

I ues connect it looks almost the same and feels better and it is free
- Sync is also free

Is the restore previous purchases function working for anyone? Which purchases will be honored? I was a sync Pro user
- If you reinstall Sync for Lemmy, you can restore your previous purchase. Unfortunately it's not for transferring your Sync for Reddit purchase, but I can understand this decision.
  
  Bummer. Then it really should be worded better I think. Why write 'restore previous purchases in sync", not "restore previous purchases in sync for lemmy".

Why would anyone pay for this while there are better alternatives?
- If there are better alternatives, I have yet to find them. Much happier right now than I was with Jerboa or Voyager.
  
  Liftoff has been treating me well so far. I used RiF prior to Lemmy and Liftoff is almost* scratching the itch, but there are some kinks to work out.
  Plus no ads and no $100+ premium fee.
  
  Thunder. Literally the same thing. Open-source, no ads, doesn't track your fucking data for targeted ads.
  Paying $100 for this is so absurd.
- Because "better" is entirely subjective and some people probably disagree with you that the options you feel are better are actually better.

Why would someone pay monthly for a social media app... That's more fucked than spez.
- At least the money goes to an independent dev that interacts well with their community instead of going to spez. Just think of it as donating (you can still use the free app with ad blocker if you want), just like you would donate to your instance admins.
  
  These people probably don't donate.

Anyone remember what the Ultra sub options were on the old version?
- Lifetime was 33 €. Not sure, but I think one year was 11 €.
  
  Damn. I was pretty sure I had lifetime, and I would have at that price. Highly unlikely I'll be purchasing lifetime again.

I bought the reddit lifetime this year. Lemmy is no where near as interesting or engaging as reddit so far. I guess I'll just stick with the ad free version.

Honestly I'd pay 60usd (price of a new video game). I'd probably end up getting the ad free version for 22usd though I'm still evaluating the app and seeing whether my favorite app Boost makes progress.
I think a good reader like sync, boost etc. Is still a good value if you spend a lot of time using it.

Honestly that’s fair. There’s way less of a subscriber base here, development time is expensive, and you need to foresee circumstances for the future (look how many people Apollo dev had to refund). Sync is also such a great app, I’m personally just using the ad version at the moment on my android phone (and this is from Memmy on iOS). Sync is still one of the best apps I’ve ever used and keep an android phone just for it.
- How does less of a subscriber base lead to way more expensive price? Unless the dev is greedy and wanting to suck the souls of all the early adopters.
  
  Well, let's just do the math: the original pro version has over 100,000 downloads over it's 10 years of life. At $3, that means the dev earn at least $300,000 over 10 years, minus 30% play store fee. Let's say they earn at least $27,000 per year, which is almost twice the minimum wage at the very least.
  Now lets do the math for Lemmy version: some metrics say we have 1 million users. Let's assume 10% of them are active users (100,000), and among those active users, lets assume 10% of them (10,000) buy Sync for Lemmy at $3 (the original price) one time purchase (a very generous estimate). This means the dev will get $27,000 (after 30% cut from play store) from those users, ever. Even more likely is only less than 1% of active users buy it, which means the dev would earn something like $3000. Even if they sell it for $20 it's likely they still won't earn the same amount as the old Reddit version.
  So yeah, I don't think the dev is greedy. In fact, I'm concerned that they won't get enough money to earn their living and we'll all have to go back to Jerboa (it's good though, but not as good as sync).
  
  I guess best way to put it is imagine Sync Reddit had 10,000 subscribers with each paying $10 lifetime. You’re netting $100,000 for those signups.
  Now the dev time hasn’t changed (in fact I’d say it actually increased as he has to research and test with a brand new API), and now his potential subscribers have decreased dramatically. To accommodate for that you need to charge a lot more as the developer is expecting only ~1000 subscribers.

So just consider buying the ad free version for 20 bucks then?

I'm definitely interested in the yearly option.

This Dev is so greedy that even if he adjusts his prices down to earth, I'll probably just skip it and wait for one of the other 3rd party Reddit app devs to come out with their lemmy versions.
What a turn off.
- There's a one time purchase at 1/5 the cost to disable ads. This is for the ultra subscription.
  
  Yeah, he's asking $20 to disable ads. Hilarious when there are already ad_free apps out here.

254 comments