I've been through all the apps but for me nothing feels as good as Sync. $20 a year for something I use hours every single day is a comically good value considering that's the cost of Netflix monthly and don't use it nearly as much.
You bought the reddit version, and it was for the lifetime of the reddit app. He had to rebuild the backend from scratch for it to work with Lemmy, it isn't the same app anymore.
No, you misunderstand. They made me pay for the reddit app twice, hence why they're not getting another cent out of me and I'm not paying for the lemmy version. I bought Sync for Reddit twice because one day the app was no longer on my phone and there was no ability to restore it, just a newly released version to download that didn't recognize my previous purchase.
That sounds like an issue with google play store, or perhaps you bought "sync for Reddit pro" (the app) in addition to the "remove ads" (in-app purchase on the free app)
I bought redditsync (what it was initially called before Reddit made everyone rename their apps) for $3-4 and used it for a decade without issue