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.

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kuronek…

People are willinh to pay for a better experience.

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.

The ads/subscription support the developer, who works on this as his full time job. This means we get a better app.

So you are ok with ads and paid subscriptions to remove them, but you aren’t ok with Reddit charging for access to its API? How do you reconcile the contradiction here? Reddit developers have to eat too. They are just a business trying to make money. What if Lemmy instances started charging for its API and priced out third party apps then added ads/subscription to their own app? All just part of the cycle?