this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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Voyager
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Haven't tried it but I just decided to put a recurring donation for aeharding on Github, Sync for Lemmy's tracking-infused ad model and the pricing for the ad-free versions just convinced me that we need to support open-source devs even more.
I find it sad that lots of people seem to be excited to pay $20 for a closed-source app but very few supported the devs that have been developing the apps that carried us on their backs until now for free.
Voyager has only 22 sponsors right now and hasn't even reached his $250/month goal on Github, while Sync for Lemmy is already asking for $100 for a OTP for the Ultra version.
EDIT: aeharding also just added a Liberapay in the sidebar!
People have a certain familiarity with Sync. I would pay $20 if "Relay for Reddit" were ported over. The other apps just lack a ton of polish unfortunately. Liftoff is the closest to being what I want (besides Sync).
Even still, I don't understand the backlash against the Sync dev charging for his work. If he's successful, others may see a viable path forward and follow him. We should WANT a variety of quality Lemmy clients out there for users. A good experience is how you gain/retain users. I'm also all for open source options for users. Users should have a choice.
It's not charging people have issue with, but the initial subscription model approach to ads it took.
It might have worked for Reddit with its api calls they were charging for and the space of reddit generally being full on monetization of its users, but for something related to the fediverse it was off putting. And I think people here are more adverse to ads even being present in an app than paying.
Approach to subscription requests I've found best has been Christians approach with Apollo of having no ads but less features on the free version like limits to filters, no multiple account logins, and no submissions.
Submissions is a shit thing to paywall imo
Maybe, but I do greatly prefer limited features to push users towards the paid option over the ad model.