For those offended by subscription for ad-free experience and data collection, consider Connect for Lemmy. No data collection and no pay-to-browse scheme.
Thank you. I'll donate. Would you consider making it open source? I used to be a fan of Sync and had their one time payment for ultra version. But this current release is subscription only and I don't want to any subscription. Again thank you. The app is great so far.
I'm okay with paying the subscription fee. I purchased Sync for Reddit Ultra back in the day with a one time payment and that was great, but it was one of the most supported apps I have ever bought in all my years of using computers and phones. For several years, I got a well supported app, and I felt like I got a steal of a purchase. I don't feel that the annual fee for Sync forLemmy is a cash grab by LJDawson, especially if the app just keeps getting better and better. It's already the most polished Lemmy client out now.
On top of all that there's an ongoing subscription service to use the premium features of the app. I'd happily pay $10-$20 one time for the app, but there's no way in hell I'm paying monthly for a bit of scrolling when Jerboa does the same stuff with no ads for free.
Lj has states he intends to introduce a one time payment for ad removal in the near future. People getting huffy over a 6-pack a year fee can rest easy soon enough.
I'm a dev so can shed some light. It's likely linked to a service called Firebase, which gives many tools to track how people use your app. You can run tests against sections of your user base to determine the best way to apply certain features before rolling them out, as well as crash reporting and the ability to see "user journeys." These "journeys" are often used to determine how to better structure an app so that users can get to where they want to go more quickly. It's a way of collecting user feedback without asking for user feedback. It's incredibly useful for feature development and bug fixing
Now, given they have ads, they're probably using Google adsense which is likely linked to firebase, so Google may get some information on how people use the app in order to increase revenue per impression. This is largely automatic
yeah same here, sticking to jerboa for now. I hope it's not going to be the same for boost for lemmy.
does anyone know if the privacy policy is only for the "free" version of sync? app store says the free version has ads too, I guess you can buy it at some point to get rid of them.
Even with ads Sync is a thousand miles ahead of Jerboa in terms of usability and experience. I'll happily have ads to not have an objectively worse experience
it's only used by third parties like admob.
if you're a paying user, admob library is not loaded at all, and crashlytics can be disabled in the settings.
Yeah, it looks like an excellent app, but I refuse to deal with ads on Lemmy. As the app is great I would happily pay a one time fee to remove ads, but it seems that the only option is a subscription, which is a no go for me.
now I'll have to double check if I'm on reddit or lemmy, love how similar the experience is :)
edit: jumped ship!!! im now on infinity for lemmy!! didn't know this was a thing. holy moly now I REALLY have to make sure if I'm on reddit or lemmy since I still have infinity for reddit installed
On home page, top left corner the three lines, then top item on the menu it produces. Ive got sidebar enabled fyi, I'm not sure if that effects what I'm seeing.
It's been an hour since this comment but just in case anyone else has the same, canceling and restarting allowed it to start downloading. For some reason the automatic attempt just hung on my device.
Nice to see ljdawson's greed has not stopped. I paid for Sync Dev back in the day, whose license was tied to Google Play account. I purged Google from my life, so I no longer could get an update to the Sync app from Play Store. I provided him the proof of my purchase on his Discord server. He banned me after denying me providing an updated APK for the license I paid for. Never paid for Sync. Never will again.
Were you not aware that almost every app on the play store is a limited licence? Like, you can't move over to Windows and expect the license to carry over by default. You don't pay for an app on Google's store and automatically get it on iOS as well.
What you wanted would have required rebuilding the app to not use play services to verify that it was paid for. While it would be nice if a developer does that, exhibition expecting it to be the default approaches absurdity when it is most definitely not the norm.
You making the decision to degoogle is great, but that's your choice. Expecting a developer to bend over backwards and rewrite part of their app for that is just silly. It's fine to ask, nothing wrong there, but calling someone greedy because they said no? That's not cool at all.
Developer was provided proof of purchase, and there was no rebuilding required. You think devs individually build and hardcore individual APKs per license and account? LOL. Play Store acts as a gatekeeper of APKs for apps, and if the account holder has paid for the license, Google allows an authorised download of the APK for paid app binary. This paid app binary can even be duplicated and pirated to other phones if wanted (which I never do) and it runs exactly 1:1, with the exception of apps that verify license via internet connection (Drastic DS, which I also paid for..)
Dev said no to a proof of purchase AND chose to ban me over it. The latter part is why I am pissed. Its not that the license carries, thats just his gratefulness (or lack of it) he would be free to engage in. I am not a loyal bootlicker.
The Play Store maintains your list of purchases. The dev would have had to build a new APK just for you with ads disabled.
On top of that, the APK wouldn't be tied to you, so you could distribute it to others, possibly preventing sales. I'm sure you wouldn't do that, but others might.
So yeah, it's possible. But it's reasonable for the dev to say no.
The Play Store maintains your list of purchases. The dev would have had to build a new APK just for you with ads disabled.
False. APK binaries, no matter paid or free, are built and deployed in a standard manner across devices. Google Play backend either has app bundles or APKs that are standard across Android, and the only differentiators are either DPI targets or ARM7/ARM8-64/i386 (last one is Intel Atom et al) ISA targets.