Sync for Lemmy is now live for everyone to try
Sync for Lemmy is now live for everyone to try
I was not a previous sync user, but it seems to be a beloved app. Although…
I am somewhat surprised at the use of personal data in the privacy policy.
I understand a guy’s gotta make a living, but with all the hype, I’m not sure I expected this.
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.
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
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.
I think you are missing the problem here. Paying for a good product or extra features is one thing. Paying to remove the ads that you added in the first place is another. Lemmy is funded entirely by donations and doesn’t have any ads.
It’s a pretty bad look that is fundamentally against the goals of Lemmy as ad free an open platform with a free API. Otherwise we are going to go down the same rabbit hole again and again like what happened with Reddit.
This is more relevant for Lemmy than client apps, but the problem with relying on ads is that you then become beholden to the ad-buyers.
I think that can be mitigated by operating as a non-profit that is not seeking to launch a multi-billion IPO at some point in the future, however. Decentralization is the answer to the "growth problem" that the last decade of failed tech investments has constantly run into.
Part of the purpose of moving from Reddit to Lemmy is that a for profit corporation making money off of the free content of users was considered bad. I might even say this was the main point of contention and thought that spawned the creation of Lemmy. A free open platform where the users are more in control of their own content. Adding ads back into the mix means that somebody is profiting again off of the free content of the users. On principal this goes against the purpose of Lemmy. You may as well just use Reddit as the end goal of monetizing the fediverse is basically going to end up the same.
So for Sync to not be against the spirit of Lemmy it would need to remove its free version with ads so that the only thing you are paying for is the app itself and not for the content without ads.
I’m fine with paying for a service I like and I did subscribe to reddit for many years. But even though I was a subscriber they didn’t offer any option for me to continue to use my apps with reddit any more. So screw them.
I understand that nothing’s free so I plan to donate to lemmy.world to help them with their costs.
There’s no contradiction. It’s just a free market. Reddit charged an absurd amount for their API and offered an inferior product as the only alternative. So people left.
If a Lemmy instance wants to charge for access or serve ads, that’s fine too. But they better have some competitive advantage or people will leave for an instance that doesn’t do that.
Another difference between Reddit and Sync is the scale. I support my local coffee shop over Starbucks for the same reason.
Funny how no one expects a coffee shop to run on donations.
I’m getting tired of people telling me what Lemmy is supposed to be about.
Every individual instance has their own goals that are completely independent from the core Lemmy project. If the creators of Lemmy don’t like that they shouldn’t have made it open source.
find what? infinity?