So they need to make all the revenue they made off Sync for Reddit in one week instead of growing with Lemmy over time like they did with Reddit?
What up front costs could there be here? Obviously their time, but no one is arguing it should be free. But making a premium app 10x the cost of any app, let alone their own Reddit version, is a crazy ask.
This is a gold rush through and through. Clearly the dev see's an open market, ran into it as fast as possible, charging an astronomically high fee, and will likely bring it down to reasonable levels as soon as another app, which there will be, shows up with reasonable pricing.