Better is mostly subjective, so take this with a grain of salt.
But it isn’t better, not yet. And it may never be.
But, let’s loop you in, Odd one (it’s a book reference, not an insult)
So, Sync started as a reddit app. As you know, reddit fucked third party apps, and made a series of insulting statements to users and mods, generating an exodus that led some people to lemmy.
On reddit, when it was fresh news, many of those app devs that had a reddit presence were asked if they would migrate their app to something else, with the most common request being lemmy (the only option that had an API worth mentioning at the time).
Out of those, Sync was one of the top five android apps. For some, it was reddit, they’d chosen sync and used nothing else.
Thus, you had weeks of build-up after Mr Dawson announced he was going to migrate. Serious hype.
So, the app drops. People check it out. Those unfamiliar with the app from reddit are surprised to find it has ads. Those familiar with it were aware that ad monetization was part of how Mr Dawson made a living. The rest was through various ad free versions, and “ultra”. Ultra was a service that added features to the app on reddit. Here, it doesn’t really add as much because some of what it does isn’t server based, so a subscription fee for those specific features isn’t as attractive. A one time fee has been added to remove ads, and the price point is a matter of upset as well.
Secondary to that, the app is closed source. Again, anyone familiar with the app from reddit would know this. It was known when very fervent requests to migrate were made.
As you may be aware, lemmy runs high to open source advocates, privacy advocates, and general mistrust of anything that doesn’t at least give a polite nod to those principles.
And that’s where the drama starts.
With all of that in mind, you have segments of the lemmy population that are hyped to have an early version of a familiar and well executed app. Those folks are surprised at the sheer venom that has been directed to the app and its developer. A segment of those are very vocal in their defense of the app. Some cross the line into being jerks. There’s another segment that dislikes the app on those principles, another that just don’t like it as an app (or prefer others), and there’s the small but noisy and rude segment that hates the app.
That’s where the drama centers. It is magnified by the fact that the more energetic the opinion is, the more likely people are to voice it, and the inverse.
Most lemmings don’t care much at all, but they’re not emotionally driven, and/or would rather just avoid drama.
My bias: I think it’s rather rude to throw nastiness at a developer that was practically (and in a few cases literally) begged to port his app for lemmy. One can object to decisions made in a civil manner. Sync was not my app of choice, but I found it to be a solid back-up, and Mr Dawson to be a fairly good example of how a developer should communicate.
Now, my opinion on sync for lemmy, as it currently exists. This is pure opinion, and should not be taken as anything else. While I despise ads, it’s a case of “hate the game, not the player”. I understand why app developers use ads, and I can’t say I blame them. The price Mr Dawson has set for a one time ad removal is fair. Regardless of what level of income can be expected from ads, that income is continuous as long as the app is used. The fee represents a reasonable amount for an app that is likely to remain useful just as it is for years.
Now, it is not up to feature parity with core lemmy tools. There are plenty of apps further along in that regard. It is, however, a very well crafted UI and has a long history of being actively maintained as well as moved forward over time. That last assumes the developer doesn’t throw up his hands as a “no win” situation and walk away. I doubt that will be the case, Mr Dawson is a pro. Wouldn’t blame him if he did though, some of the comments directed at him would have been nasty on reddit; here, they’re so far beyond acceptable it’s disgusting. Lemmy is supposed to be better than reddit in that regard.
I don’t do tl;drs because it ain’t that fucking hard to read, but to kinda close things out, it can be summed up as a massive amount of confusion about exactly what the app was, is, and should be.
This is a good summary; as a reddit exile myself who exclusively used Sync, I think it’s worth emphasising that Dawson has done an amazing job of making the transition from reddit to lemmy pretty seamless from an app design point of view. I can set my views and filters up identically as they were in the Reddit version of the app, and the lemmy experience becomes essentially identical to reddit.
There’s definitely a conflict between “paid closed source app” and “FOSS fediverse”, and there’s arguments to be made about whether user revenue should be directed to server expenses to maintain communities or front end app development to attract more users, which I think will be interesting to see play out. But at the end of the day Sync makes lemmy “useable” in a way that replicates the reddit experience, which is what a lot of migrants were after - other apps (while arguably more feature rich in terms of the fediverse) just didn’t quite hit the dopamine-feed the way Sync does.
Use infinity for lemmy
It’s free software and yu can get it on fdroid
It’s not.
They charge $130+ for an ultra lifetime when its Reddit counterpart was only $10 or under.
They put things like ad removal behind a paywall
Jerboa is pretty bad in many, many ways; at one point it almost killed Lemmy for me. Sync is at least polished and robust. I’ve not seen ads yet but I wouldn’t be opposed to paying something for a decent client - I used to pay for Narwhal too.
It’s not. The Sync dev wants you to pay $20 to remove ads from the app. I’m sticking with Connect and Voyager.
