It seems unsustainable and mixed up to think no one should ever use non-FOSS options for anything.
Maybe that would be the case if we were in some post scarcity perfect society where no one needed income, and all devs were just doing it for self-fulfillment, but I can't blame someone for wanting to make income off of their work. Especially if they seem like a reasonable person, wanting reasonable amounts for good work.
Isn't supporting a smaller dev a good thing? I mean, this guy got screwed over by reddit fucking up his income.
Ain't that the truth. People act like charging for software is evil no matter what. There's a huge difference between a lone dev trying to earn a living and a huge corporation trying to wring every last ounce of profit out of their users. And there's probably degrees of nuance between those.
Especially if they seem like a reasonable person, wanting reasonable amounts for good work.
And that's the important context in this discussion. You've got a dev who's active in the community and who builds an app not only with great features and UI but with stability too. And he has a not insignificant user base that is familiar not just with his work but essentially with this exact app... It's reasonable for him to assume we'll see the value and be willing to pay. And he is correct.
I'm personally averse to subscription models, but again context matters. Reasonable rate and you know what you're getting. And I say this as a huge fan of both FOSS and socialism. I could have easily just let my DNS continue to filter out the ads, but I appreciate quality and believe it should be appropriately compensated.
actually, speaking of the subscription, the fact that ads can be removed with either the subscription or a one time payment is one of my favorite things about sync. I don't really like subscriptions either, but then the only feature I really wanted from Sync was the ads removed, so I don't have to even care about the subscription. I wish that kind of monetization style was WAY more popular.
I was on the fence because I didn't need the subscription features, but instantly bought the ad free IAP for $12.99 as soon as it was added. It still seems a bit steep for an app, but it's one-time, and supports the Dev (whose Reddit app I used for years) so I didn't really mind. That and it was $0.40 after using my opinion rewards credits
The team is looking into optimizations to try and smooth out some of the jank that's still present in places. Should reduce CPU and battery use as well.
All these shit posts are fun, but why is connect a red haired step child all the time?
Any legit arguments against it? Has room for improvement, but it's the best I've found thus far.
The only thing I didn't like about connect was for image loading. When I click on an image it is blurry and comes to clarity. Loading is an issue. I don't know if there is any settings for it inside the app. Whereas in sync it loads perfectly fine for me.
Yup. I had $5 of Google opinion rewards money saved, so it was only 15ish out of the bank account. I work full time... I think I'll be fine. Plus honestly, the dude worked hard creating a fantastic app. He deserves to be rewarded for that.
As far as I know, that's the plan. They just haven't had an initial non-alpha/beta release yet since the app is still quite unfinished (references to Reddit, certain menus just error out, etc.)
You usually want to have a product that is kind of working when you ship it to normies
What I'm still struggling with is if it's still ok with my mortal compass to use Reddit to find information I know will be there. Specifically, product reviews.
I'm no longer contributing content on Reddit, and I'm not passively browsing either, but how do y'all feel about tapping reddit's wealth of information?
I subscribe to RSS feeds for subreddits that don't exist on Lemmy just so that I don't give them any clicks or ad revenue.
For answers to questions or problems that are only available on Reddit, I turn on my favorite privacy browser, I hold my breath, go to that specific post, get my answer, and gtfo asap.
Like the saying goes, never stick it in crazy. But if you have to, be protected.
Shouldn't Infinity have the same polish then? I am a Software Engineer (not front-end though) and I'd be fascinated to learn the technical differences.
I'm on Jerboa and downloaded/installed sync yesterday. As a former RIF user, I don't have a horse in this race. I am more familiar with Jerboa, but find the overall feel of both (admittedly, without a lot of use, to be pretty comparable).
That said, I kind of like some of the ideas in Jerboa more? For example, tap to minimize comments and their children on Jerboa is quite a bit faster. I'm kind of sad that both make selecting some of the text in a comment hard and miss the RIF collapse/expand button. Jerboa also matches the font size of everything else in my UI better than Sync. For example, the font size of this reply and my keyboard are the same in Jerboa. In Sync the in-app font size is quite a bit smaller.
At the end of the day, I think that both apps are going to be largely comparable for a fairly casual user like me. I bet both offer more functionality than I'm using, but so far I don't feel like I'm missing anything.
I no longer have an Android so idk how the new Sync is, but the version for Reddit was extremely customizable and did have option to disable tap to minimize and give you a button instead. I used Sync daily for nearly 10 years and it’s by far the best experience I’ve had
Jerboa also matches the font size of everything else in my UI better
This has been my biggest annoyance in all the apps I've tried so far, I'm using thunder at the moment and it's extra large font is juuust big enough, but still way too small to be called extra large.
Quite a few of the others don't even have that though, liftoff was terrible for it with no option to change it and Jerboa is easily the best in this regard but with it scaled up to match my UI it's a too much scrolling and weird formatting.
Can't wait for Boost, it was my reddit go to for years simply because of all it's toggles, I could customize pretty much every part of the UI. Which is probably why it's taking a while to come out, there was quite a bit more to it than pretty much any other of the alternatives.
During my reddit days I used boost and sync interchangeably. Because they're so similar. But the last app I used before leaving reddit was boost.
Now I'm using Voyager and infinity. I have arctius but it gets less usage.
I also install and cycle through all the available android apps. And so far amongst the non reddit apps. Connect and lift off were the best, summit is nearly there, thunder can surpass summit of the slow loading and browsing problem is resolved.
I used jerboa for last few months, but I got sync the other day, and it is very smooth but I'm really missing certain things from jerboa I found super intuitive. Also in sync I can't seem to highlight, copy, paste from a posted comment...perhaps that's a paid feature only? Also no post creation is kinda lame, and I hope that is not behind a pay wall too. ..I don't mind paying guy for his work, but I can't afford it.
I honestly couldn't stand Jerboa personally back when I used it so for me it's nothing like sync (which is my favourite app so far even on the free version), but maybe Jerboa has improved since I left.
Former RIF user + current Jerboa user, too. I'm happy so far. I'm also very casual/waaaay less tech knowledgeable than most other people on the platform, and I'm sure that has influenced my opionion
It's really like reddit clients, there is no single "best" choice, because everyone has different preferences. There were some reddit clients that people swore by and raved about that I absolutely hated, and others that I loved that no one else used.
Huge sync fan and pro user for many years now but I couldn't get over the subscription and especially the one off cost, it's just too much.
Been using infinity for reddit as soon as sync went down and it's easily my favourite app out of all that's available but it's not without it's downsides, at least to me. So I'll happily use inifity for lemmy from now on, it even seems to run better then the reddit app lol.
Same here. It was my second favorite Reddit client (after Boost, and, for a while, Dash), but I feel he priced himself right out of the market. I'm waiting to see what Boost for Lemmy has to offer and at what cost.
I never really warmed up to Infinity for Reddit, but I'll give it another shot. Connect and LiftOff aren't bad either for being this early in development and Voyager just came out swinging.
I just paid for cheapest Sync Beta when I had Reddit, and I loved it... But $30 is too expensive. $5 seems more reasonable. And now I am addicted to using Jerboa.
I haven't tried Sync but I've tried Connect and Jerboa and I'm now on Liftoff. All have felt pretty smooth to me, Liftoff especially is about as smooth as I could imagine anything being. I've got no problem with people using Sync bit I don't get how they're having such a bad experience on other apps.
I used the first two, but just enjoy the experience of sync better. If sync didn't exist, I'd be just fine and happy still. But I currently browse Lemmy 30 minutes to an hour each day, so $20 for no ads is something I'll probably eventually pay for the hundreds of hours I'll use the app.
Yeah I certainly don't object to the cost, I'm happy to pay for good software. I guess I should try it to see what the benefit is, I can't tell from screenshots
For me it's actually a bit about brand loyalty. Been using synch for 10+ years and got so used to it. I don't have problems with other Lemmy apps at all.
Show me a foss client which shows community suggestions in the search bar when you start typing and auto collapsing comments features. Otherwise you can't change my mind.
This was me, lol. Initially their instant app was the best and I would have probably stuck with it if it hadn't been for all the logout and invalid CSRF tolken shenanigans. I also would occasionally have issues interacting with other instances. I made another account on lemmy.world and things are a bit smoother with the native apps. It's been a week or two since I hopped over and I've never had a login issue.
voyager has a great ui. Only bad thing was it felt a bit junky before official play store release of the app but now it feels great. Just wish it would have a option to downlaod images.
How will users welcome it though. I kind of want to see. Will it also get a Sync reception? Will lemmy have double standards? Let's see what u/mayayo will do.
When Sync got released, I was feeling guilty using it (as a jerboa user). But over time, I got used to it. It makes me use lemmy on my phone too, so I still consider this step in a better direction.
Functionality wise, I dislike icons and app icon on jerboa.
I need a client that automatically marks as read as you scroll by. And it doesn't bring back the read threads every time you reopen or refresh the god damn app.
Most of the clients I've used could do that (Connect, Voyager, Sync). You just have to go and look through the settings. Also the Lemmy web UI can hide read posts too. Just go to your account settings and untick the "show read posts" option
Noooo! How DARE you taint my FOSS environment with options for a subscription-incentive-driven UX! You're basically inviting FAANG to walk all over us! /s
Why? Used sync for Reddit for 14 years, was the only way I would use Reddit. He dev is amazing, and I will always support his apps paying for the subscription. He works hard and created an amazing app. Genuinely interested why you believe it's bad? It is only in beta fyi.