This one dude has made this app for years and constantly updates it, fixes things, is responsive, and makes a great app. He's now been more loyal to his users longer than Reddit has, and I personally have used his app daily for 13 years.

Yeah, I'll happily pay for it.

FOSS is great but it doesn't pay the rent people, this guy is doing this mostly as his main gig. This isn't some huge corpo, it's one guy who makes his living building the app he loves. I'm sure he'd love to make it FOSS if he didn't have to pay bills on anything.

FOSS is great but also developers' gotta eat

I don't think apps have to be FOSS. It's super important for libraries, frameworks and other infrastrucuture related stuff to be FOSS, but you can always change a client.

I'm using Sync right now. I've tried a few different lemmy apps and this is the only one that actually works without bugs. Maybe because it's a paid developers full time job and not just some free side project?

I do wish it wasn't a subscription. Apps are generally a flat fee.

The three stages of a long-term FOSS user:

1. How the fuck do I do anything? I'm so lost.

2. I've somewhat mastered how to use it and became a power user. I'm happy about this, I've developed a sense of superiority over those who don't use it, and will now promote it constantly to others like a goddamn cult. My SO has left me and my family has disowned me, but I don't care, they are too ignorant to be as enlightened as I am.

3. (A decade or two later) I don't even give a fuck anymore what somebody uses, this still works for me, and what works for you, works for you. Let's just all coexist. OS and app development models don't mean shit, common standards and protocols between them do. As long as I, a Linux user, can email a PNG to a Mac user and they can open it, we're good.

It's been like this since the mid-90s. Most of the people who are being annoying about it are in stage 2.

I just wish people would stop making software choice their whole personality

Don't forget this is a community built around Open Source software with many refugees who came because proprietary apps were forced on them.

I am currently using Sync, and while I agree that the UX is better I can also understand why so many on the Fediverse are against similar apps. They are here because corporations have ruined every other good thing on the internet and non-FOSS is very much associated with big corporations. While I would prefer that Sync were FOSS I also see the reality of Western society and how untenable creating an app would be without some kind of ad revenue. A majority of people are notoriously stingy and donations can only get you so far.

Everyone is always promoting that app, so I don't understand why y'all are butthurt when anyone complains about it.

Dude, at least people don't use Reddit is what I think about this situation.

The great part of the fediverse is that everyone can use whatever they want. Personally I stick to Foss clients though.

I don't mind so much that it's not FOSS. Developer needs paying, fair enough

I want an app without an egregious Privacy Policy that doesn't bundle code that shares "Usage Data" with advertisers

Sync is great and I'm happy to pay for a quality user experience to support a solo dev.

I use Linux and tons of other open source software daily. I have published and maintain a number of open source projects, and contribute regularly to others.

I also pay for closed source software and have a few proprietary apps that I sell.

There's a place for both models, they're not exclusive.

Obligatory xkcd comic.

https://xkcd.com/743/

I installed sync yesterday, and it's nice. It's very usable without paying for it. In fact, the only reason I could see paying at all is to support the creator. The ads are negligible. I had to look for them to notice em. Basically if you don't wanna use it, don't. Not very complicated imo. There's other apps and the web browser. Your paying for the interface not the content.

Sync is 1 person