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this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but does Sync seriously charge to remove ads that they added to browsing Lemmy in the first place? I get charging for Reddit due to the API, but I have a hard time believing the app is that much better than the existing FOSS apps such that the privacy tradeoff with ad trackers and/or the monetary cost worth it for, well, anyone really. Seems kinda scummy and antithetical to the philosophy that drives much of the Fediverse to me, yet I see so many people defending it in a way that reminds me of the rhetoric used to defend Reddit. Seriously, am I just a crazy person?
LJ, the dev of Sync, makes a living off it. It's not a side project like most Lemmy apps are for their devs. This means that yes, it's monetized, but also, it's one of the most polished and frequently updated apps.
Not trying to be just be contrarian for contrarianism's sake, but it doesn't look like anything special to me. I'm just having a hard time wrapping my ahead around why anyone would pay for it, leaving charging for it / putting ads and tracking in it in the first place aside.
It's quite polished, mainly that. Even for a beta, there's almost no bugs, it respects Android Material You specs including animations, and it's highly customizable, allowing advanced filtering for example. It also adds very nice QoL features like automatically removing AMP links for full links.
Value is subjective, I personally consider it worthy of my money.
For me at least, part of it is a degree of "brand loyalty" because I used Sync for Reddit for a very long time. I paid I think 6$ for the pro version years ago and got absurd value for my money.
Now, the dev makes the move to Lemmy and enables an experience that is both very polished and very familiar. I don't mind paying a (one time) fee to support the dev in that setting.
Re: trackers, my current understanding is that all of that was attached to the ad system, and removing ads functionally removes the tracking. My pihole provides a good measure of cover too.
If someone wants to stick with another one, great, I hope it works well for them. I suspect I'll be happy here.
Not contrarian at all, just different preferences. The simple answer for many people is one of habit. Sync was the only way for many people to access Reddit for a long time (including me) and it just felt like home.
I personally am a big fan of Voyager as well and it's really nice to see the vibrant apps scene on Lemmy.