Sync Ultra is a very reasonable $17 a YEAR. YouTube Premium is reaching that per MONTH. I have sync downloaded and it was the first thing I did. Thanks lj for the beautiful app.
[EDIT: That was a poor comparison, as pointed out in the comments. Leaving it for discussion sake.
There are many counterpoints and actually good discussion happening down below. Even if you don’t agree, thanks for showing me a different perspective!
If you want to support Sync, make sure to support the Lemmy Devs and your instance holders as well!
*This post was made early in the day before the update added the OTP option.]
I’m really confused why people feel this way. Can’t you just cancel it if you feel like it’s not worth it anymore?
I just don’t do subscriptions. One of the aspects I hated about my foray into the Apple app store where everything seemed to be subscription or ads. Quickly missed Android and places like f-droid where I knew I could find ad free and subscription free open source alternatives.
I was happy to pay for apps like Procreate and Lumafusion though, so it’s not that I’m against paying for ads. I just don’t do subscriptions.
I generally do not do subscriptions either, but I do make some exceptions for specific apps/services. At least for me, Sync is one of those for now.
When I think about it I think it’s mainly been web hosting type services where data is being streamed or stored on the cloud that I’ve been fine with subscriptions for. And then not so much for pure software preferring more pay once and then pay for a new version update down the line type of approach like Office 2021 for example over Office 365. Although, I’ve moved mostly to libreoffice.
Same for games. I’d rather pay Diablo 4 $70 over paying for PS+ or game pass. Chose to forgo online multiplayer than pay for PS+ on my PS4 last Gen. Generally preferred a large one time lump sum than small monthly payments for things, since I suppose I just a distaste for adding more monthly expenses to the already growing list of monthly expenses.
Plus, how many years do you think Diablo 4 will be supported with updates/patches? At $17/year Sync will be just as expensive after a few years and doesn’t exactly have the same development team size or cost as something like Diablo…
Completely fair point.
Unless the app offers you cloud functions like email, cloud storage, multi-player gaming, or social media sites(lemmy, kbin, mastodon), etc. I see subscriptions as a no-go.
Sync does have some cloud features (and I suspect push notifications will be one of them soon), but yeah, I understand paying for them isn’t for everyone.
That’s a very good point. Software as a product should have a different pricing model than software as a service.
I usually hate subscriptions that try to squeeze you for money.
In the case of sync, I see it as a recurring donation for LJ. 15 bucks is what I make in like 20 minutes as an engineer myself, so ‘paying’ 20 minutes of my salary to a developer of such an awesome app is no problem for me.
I think Christian with Apollo went with a much better approach where he didn’t put in any ads, but limited the app to only being able to use one account and putting a limit to the filter list. But, you could buy the pro version to remove those limits and he put in subscription options too. If subscription is to be pushed his approach felt like the most tasteful way to go.
I gladly pay subscriptions for services. I see that the Ultra has cloud backup of settings, but how much storage could that possibly use? Certainly not $2/mo worth. For that price I’ll want the equivalent of 100Gb of storage in the cloud.
edit: I’d send $2/mo. to the admins of my instance. They’re running the servers that host all this content.
Good point, I didn’t think about it when I wrote my comment, but I agree that there’s a difference between paying for a software product and paying for a software service.