Afternoon everyone,
I wanted to go over a few points related to pricing, stats and the roadmap
Pricing
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Sync for Lemmy is completely free with ads (the same as Sync for Reddit)
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You can remove ads in the account picker or drawer for a one time fee of ~$20
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Sync Ultra also removes ads but it’s not required
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I’ll be working on regional prices over the coming weeks
There are now 24k installed users up from 100 the previous day!
I’m going to be spending the next few days going through all of the comments / messages and fixing any crashes.
As always thanks for the support and hope you’re liking Sync!
Lj
Edit: testing edit
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I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the backslash you’re getting for charging money.
I’m also sorry people expect it to be $1 because the Reddit app was $1 back in 1825. I genuinely believe it’s children complaining, because no functioning adult would complain about a price increase when rent has tripled or quadrupled since the $1 Reddit app. It’s also annoying to see that people think that saying they bought the Reddit app for $1 and enjoyed it for 10 years is an argument. It goes to show it was severely underpriced.
It must be frustrating to have that type of response. Lemmy users seem to be really entitled when it comes to software, and the response you’re getting scares me for the future. I really hope the Boost developer doesn’t cancel his app after seeing how entitled Lemmy users are being right now.
What frustrates me more is the people complaining are continuing to use the free open source apps. Like great, you already have an alternative you prefer. Shut up. Stop bringing others down.
I wish you the best. Thank you for choosing to develop for Lemmy. I have my eyes on Boost, but I’m gladly using your free tier for the time being.
Thanks again!
LJ,
I too am a reddit refugee. I like what you’ve done with this place.
:)
But we have to talk about pricing and privacy.
Pricing: tbh I see not much wrong with the 20 bucks. But I do think that you should take 2 bucks from that and donate one to the lemmy org (this is not reddit, nobody is getting paid, the lemmy devs also need an incentive) and the other one to lemmy.world because that’s the instance you’re dumping us all on. Hosting is not free, lemmy.world costs money and probably a lot of time to run. Being a reddit admin is a payed job, being Ruud at lemmy.world most certainly is not.
In this way “we” are giving back to the Foss community and it should silence a lot of critics. In that way you don’t look like the evil capitalist earning a quick buck over the back of free labour of the foss community. I think that’s 2 bucks well spent.
Edit: same goes for ultra subscriptions of course, a similar percentage should be fed back to the lemmy org and lemmy.world.
Privacy: since you’re using admob and I forgot the other one, privacy is out the window. That’s a big issue for the Foss community we’re all relying on. Maybe it’s wise to point out that once you pay for sync all that tracking that admob and the other one (not you I hope) does is out the window.
Edit edit: maybe you could also add a yearly reminder to donate to the users favourite lemmy instance.
Yeah man…I am a dev myself but $20 to remove ads is just too much, especially without regional pricing.
I’ll be working on this full time and plan to make this the best Lemmy app possible.
I think the pricing is fine if the quality matches it. Considering how much time we spend on our phones it could be great value for money.
I’m very curious to see how the advertising option works out for you, as currently I’m not aware of any lemmy sites with sustainable finance models.
I wouldn’t call it financially sustainable. It pays for the servers, not for the labor.
No offense to beehaw, they’re doing great work.
Most of FOSS doesn’t pay for labor, its volunteers.
That level of transparency is incredible, lowkey considering making an account there…
They’re defederated with lemmy.world and https://sh.itjust.works/. It’s something to consider before joining
Also worth noting at the time they said it was temporary and due to the lack of sufficient mod tools available in Lemmy. If mod tools improve that could change. But yes, right now it’s definitely something to think about with world being a massive instance that m with a lot of larger communities.
I definitely wouldn’t, you’d lose out on half the content on lemmy
Yeah, I read about that too, but what if I make an account on an instance that isn’t world or beehaw? Would I see content from both?
Yep
They like to keep a really tight walled garden. That’s why I left, I want to decide for myself which instances to block.
The AOL of Lemmy?
Lemmyworld is quite transparent too: https://opencollective.com/mastodonworld
I wonder if that’s shared with lemmy.world or if that data is just for the Mastodon service?
Shared with Lemmyworld AFAIK
Will you be supporting kbin in the future?
£100 upgrade
/s before this blows up lol
You joke but the moment Sync supports at least my kbin account to login, I’m sending you that $100 lifetime ultra upgrade with love. Posted from kbin.social on the browser, because I can’t yet login on Sync for Lemmy.
Serious question about the monies charged. Do you think there will be backlash again from the instances? If lemmy.world starts seeing significant traffic from the api via sync and you’re inserting your own ads and charging for ad-removal. Will they want a slice of the pie? Cut the api access?
Thank you for adding a one time payment option. Much appreciated.
You asked us and we told you to make it, so I’m pleased. I haven’t cancelled my sync for reddit subscription. Will that keep going to you, or will it cancel at some point?
Yeah, I’m sure of it. Wishing you all the best!
I bought Reddit Sync Pro way back when you gave out coupon codes for a discount when you first created it. (just found my receipt… November 2013 for ONE DOLLAR!!!) Used it for what was probably a decade for that low initial price and watched it just get better and better over time.
I assume that I’m going to be using Sync for Lemmy for a decade, and I have zero issue with the upfront ad free cost.
Aside from regional pricing issues, I think some of these potential customers just don’t realize how much they’re going to be getting from you for this price.
Ultra Lifetime is really tempting…
$20 once, for an app you’re going to use daily for the foreseeable future mind you, is not the unreasonable take that people on here seem to think it is.
You get what you pay for, and Sync has proven it’s track record with the Reddit app already. This isn’t just some random app dev asking for money on his bejeweled clone.
It’s $100 once. The $20 option is a yearly subscription.
Edit: Some misunderstanding. It’s $20 to remove ads, and $100 to get all features. Maybe the $20 subscription is for full features and removing ads?
You have completely misread the app. The “Sync Ultra” is not the same as the one-time “Remove Ads” option.
If you want “Sync Ultra” for a lifetime, it’s $100 or w/e it’s listed as, that comes with all the extra features listed in the app. If you just want to remove ads and use the app without the Ultra features, you only have to pay $20 once.
Re: your edit
Yes, the subscription option has a monthly/yearly/lifetime structure set at $2/$17/$100 respectively. Each of those unlocks all the Ultra features (which includes removing ads).
Which is separate from the one time payment of the $20 to only remove ads.
Disagree. I think that is fair given the amazing quality of the app
Agreed. $5 MAYBE, $20 is out to lunch. And a subscription model for full features? Nah get outta here with that, that MIGHT be worth $20. The direction app development has gone over the last few years is a huge disappointment
$5 as a one-time payment is not enough for a single developer to sustain his livelihood on.
And ultimately, “worth” is based on what the market decides.
Removed by mod
Many of us former Reddit Sync users requested that he make the app for Lemmy, so in a sense we do have a contractor type of relationship with him. Hence why many former Sync users are comfortable paying the amount. I think a lot of people who are complaining about the price are just not the target audience for Sync.
You make valid points, however, I’d like to point out that most games on the play store don’t cost a lot because the real costly transactions are in-app purchases. It’s common, in my experience, for the popular free apps to have IAPs upwards of $100 for in-game currency.
There’s also that matter of the no-cost version of the app. It seems perfectly usable, making the ad-removal an optional purchase.
Considering the smaller user-base and the finite economic value of life-time purchases I’d say $20 is fair. But that’s my stated opinion and I have yet to put my money where my mouth is.
Very good point regarding micro transactions.
I think you’re mistaking value for cost. ljdawson doesn’t work for us and sync is not work for hire. Lawrence is not a contractor nor do we have an employer/employee relationship so we don’t owe him a wage for the work he has done or compensation for his time. We have a customer/vendor relationship, and the only thing that matters to the customer is the value of the end product that the vendor is trying to sell.
This is a fair response, and ultimately it is incumbent on the developer to create the value-add that justifies the cost.
I suppose my comment is directed at the sentiment that the developer is “greedy” or trying to swindle consumers in an immature market.
This is by far the best app for Lemmy. By a mile. It’s a lot faster and nicer looking. That said, pricing feels a little steep. Imagine being able to sustain your livelihood on making an app for Lemmy, an otherwise free service providing no additional content. It’s not like we are paying the persons who invest in all the infrastructure for the servers running the Lemmy instances. They provide for the actual service. If a part of the money went to instance servers it would feel way better. Because if they go down, so will Sync.
Not taking anything away from the massive work Lj is putting into this, but pricing do feel a tad off. If 1500 people subscribe he has a yearly income equal to a decent job. If he gets 5000 subs he will earn almost 100 000 dollars a year. Which in Sweden equals to about 2.5 times of a well paid job. That’s excluding ad revenue from everyone who don’t subscribe or pay for removing ads. Pricing can be fairer without compromising the livelihood of said dev. That’s all.
That’s like saying imagine someone wanting to sustain themselves by running a public transport network. All they do is help you to get to and from work. How can they have so much hubris as to believe that’s worth anything?!
Exactly. Doing anything, if it requires work and provides value to you, has a value, and thus could be expected to be charged for. Ad-supported software has kinda ruined a lot of people’s perception of money and value, expecting everything to be free.
I’m gladly paying. Just not 117 dollars for the experience to be ad free which is what the app wants me to pay in Swedish kronor.
Wha? A yearly ultra sub is 15 bucks. 1500x15 is 22500. 5000 times is 75000.
And that’s not ‘the same as a full time job’, not by a long shot. Google takes its cut - what, 20%? Then you have income tax, insurances etc, another 20-30% at least, and so on. So, for 5000 subscriptions, he’s left with around 42k at the end of the day.
15 bucks? So the conversion rate to Swedish kronor is messed up then. Because my yearly fee is way more than that. If I earned 42k dollars and continued to live in my house with my family we would be insanely well off.
42k/yr is basically poverty in a US city
This is insane to me. You can live in so many other countries with as high, or higher living standards and live the good life with that money.
I’m pretty sure his calculations were based on the monthly price, as for me monthly shows up as 2.99 per month. I’ll also say that including income tax in your calculation is crazy. We all have to pay income tax, but the income told us when we get a job or see a job posting is gross income.
Other than that, if you want Sync for lemmy and willing to pay for it, that’s fair. I paid 3 bucks for Nova Prime years ago and I have used it everyday. It came with me to every new phone I owned. I also redesign my layout quite often using it. It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to pay that amount monthly when Nova Prime was a one time payment.
Nope. Yearly. But I used the pricing for me, in Sweden. Seems the conversion rate is a bit off. Because my price is 19 dollars per year and the price for Lifetime is at 117 dollars.
No app is worth that, sorry.
Depends on your country, really.
Yes, in Switzerland you’re also told gross income - yet that’s not the ‘real gross income’. There’s lots of other stuff your employer pays for you when you get hired somewhere. For example, in Switzerland, we have mandatory retirement contributions (not like social security, we also have a pension fund seperately from this), that has to be matched by an employer, 1:1.
It really depends on your country, but say in Switzerland, you have to earn a good 30-40% more money when self employed compared to being employed at a company to have the same net amount of money available at the end of the day.
If he gets 5000 subs he will earn almost 100 000 dollars a year. Which in Sweden equals to about 2.5 times of a well paid job.
If that is the case, well then in some of the larger coastal areas in the U.S. such a salary is far below what a decent software developer can expect. Cost of living is very high in those areas.
Talking about prices and costs is very difficult in a global ecosystem, because even different regions of the same country can have significant differences in market that change the value of money, even setting aside currency exchange.
You are 100% correct. I just went off of my own view and what is good and not where I live.
He’s in the UK, I thought.
The fair pricing is what the market will tolerate. I’m not saying it’s 100% “justified”; even the dev understands that he needs to tweak it for other regions. But the value add is from the superiority of the app experience, which right now is much better than anything else available (for me; of course this is all subjective). In the future, perhaps other apps will achieve parity with Sync, at which time market forces will cause the developer to course correct on pricing.
I’ll also add that I purchased Sync for Reddit (Pro) for USD$2 nine years ago. If I get nine years out of Sync for Lemmy that’s a bargain at even 10 times the price (which is the current offering).
I used it for nearly a decade for $2, so I figure it’s worth it.
It’d have been nice if lemmy only had upvotes. Maybe I can turn votes off.
Whether the pricing is appropriate is purely subjective. I paid the 20 bucks, thank you for your work. Looking forward to see this app thrive, it already works super smooth!
Hope you do not take the inevitably rude comments to heart.
Initially, I didn’t have a problem with it, but I read some good points in other threads that it is far too expensive for those in undeveloped countries, and that there should be a sliding scale instead of a straight-up currency conversion.
Yup as mentioned I’ll be setting these by region over time. But it involves me individually tailoring the price to each country usually comparing it to some metric like the cost of a take away.
You could use the Big Mac Index. Yeah, that’s a thing.
That or purchasing power parity would be a great basis for the pricing tbh
Steam has recommended regional pricing for Steam games, maybe that could be used as a guide?
Regional pricing is coming soon, hopefully that will help!
I’ll repeat what I said in some other thread:
I loved the old app, I still love the new app, it’s a pleasure to use compared to the alternatives I’ve tried, and I find the ultra subscription rate both reasonable and worthwhile to support a product I truly enjoy.
Sync is good for me. There’s plenty of other options if it’s not good for you.
Please keep up the good work!
(シ_ _)シ
I can’t afford the lifetime right now, but I will upgrade when I can. I hope this works out for you financially, Sync for Reddit was my most used all.
Have you got a roadmap for Ultra benefits?
(Fuck spez)
I just want to say thank you for getting Sync up and running on Lemmy. Please don’t let the toxic comments sour your day. I for one is really grateful for what you do.
Beta 26 is already a MASSIVE improvement over Jerboa or the web client. Thanks for making this happen so fast!
As for the pricing, I was a paid Sync for Reddit user for YEARS. $20 is nothing for the countless hours of scrolling I got out of it.
Going to have a stab at regionalising ad free now.
Reply to this with your country and I’ll regionalise the pricing there.
I’m seriously impressed with how functional this app is from the start. Like lots of others have said, it felt like coming home given how long I’d used Sync for. Didn’t hesitate to pay for the ad free version once that option was added.
I’m all on board with FOSS, but I used sync for reddit for years, ljdawson has my support on Lemmy too. I don’t mind supporting a good dev. Do I prefer things be FOSS? Yeah, but I have no issues using a closed source product if it works. And sync has always been top notch. Responsive dev, all around good product.
Check out number 10.
My wishlist:
- Downvote counts
- Mod tools
https://github.com/laurencedawson/sync-for-lemmy/issues/128
https://github.com/laurencedawson/sync-for-lemmy/issues/137
I thought there was a catch all for moderator tools, but I can’t find it.
I believe adding mod tools was mentioned in the Discord. They are also planned to be free without anything being locked behind an IAP
Yup, first round of them went live today.
Yep mod tools for everyone.
Today’s update added mod tools
I was floored when I opened the beta and found that almost all existing features survived the transition. In a single month! You’re a monster that makes the rest of us developers look bad 😉
I know that there’s an active ongoing discussion about monetization models and I’m certain that there’s room for improvement… but at the end of the day you can’t make everyone happy. I just wanted you to know that, as a long-time fan, I sincerely appreciate what’s been accomplished here. Cheers! Don’t forget to take some well-deserved you time once things quiet down a little.
A part from the comments on the images, I think there is a bug with alignment because the first comment has 3 lines instead of one as you can see from this image
The backlash has surprised me a bit. I agree the price is a bit steep but considering the userbase is only a fraction of what Reddit has, it’s understandable that the price would be higher.
I just didn’t expect such negative reactions to either the ad component or the price. A lot have mentioned that it could become a form of gatekeeping for newcomers. I just hope it won’t turn out that way.
