• Kokesh@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Downloaded just now, looks great! But I don’t really enjoy the subscription model. Why not make one lifetime purchase of let’s say $20 or something? Monthly or yearly payments are a no for me. But paying even a little bit more for a lifetime would be working.

    • OR3X@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Exactly what I came here to say. I had purchased Sync Ultra (or whatever it was called) in the reddit app and was really happy with the experience. First thing I went to do upon installing the new one was go to purchase again and was really disappointed to see a monthly subscription and no one-time purchases option. Then I was even more disappointed to see ads in the feed. I mean, I get why the developer went this route, but it really sucks. I don’t want another running subscription to think about. I have enough of those as it is.

      • KingStrafeIV@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        I might be mistaken, but I don’t think Sync Ultra is the same thing as the ad-free sync premium. Sync Ultra is a subscription because it adds functionality that requires cloud resources, not just removes ads.

          • KingStrafeIV@midwest.social
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            1 year ago
            • Ad free
            • Cloud backup
            • Highlight users
            • Tag users
            • Translate text
            • Select text from images
            • Push notifications
            • Saved folders
            • Import / export subscriptions

            Source: The sync ultra description from in-app

              • KingStrafeIV@midwest.social
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                1 year ago

                It all depends on how you implement it. He describes the text from images as using machine learning, which implies using an external API to do that translation.

                Storing cloud backups requires a server and storage, etc.

                • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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                  1 year ago

                  which implies using an external API to do that translation

                  It doesn’t. You can have local models.

                  Storing cloud backups requires a server and storage, etc.

                  Yes, it doesn’t have to be the author’s storage. Many, many apps implement it as adding the data to your Google Drive / Dropbox / whatever.

                  • KingStrafeIV@midwest.social
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                    1 year ago

                    You can have local models, but the vast majority of people are going to farm that out to a 3rd party provider via API calls because it’s the easiest thing to do.

                    Remember I said “It all depends on how you implement it”.

      • AZmaybe9@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Alternatively, Sync had so many updates that paying for Ultra once so many years ago felt like I stole it. It’s like $17 a year? I could do that easily to support the dev.

    • MosterdMan@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      Same here, would buy the lifetime purchase straight away but holding off on the subscription, given the ad-free experience is the only thing I care about.

      • Vqhm@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’d pay 20 a year if it were split 50/50 with the instance I select as my default… I mean the instances need to pay for bandwidth and hosting somehow. I get it, devs need to eat too, but pay it forward.

    • calr0x@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think it’s definitely reasonable to expect that the app will continue to improve and there is no lifetime charge that would cover that.

      The time is now to encourage and support development of the things you like and that also includes your favorite Lemmy instance itself.

    • curiouscuriosity@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I get that lifetime subscriptions are much more palatable to users but I don’t think it works if you consider that users will want lifetime support as well. So for maybe 20$ you’ll get theoretically years of even decennias of support, ignoring inflation, new bugs and security concerns, etc. It just doesn’t make sense and I wouldn’t expect it from a dev.

      • Kokesh@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t really expect support. I guess bugs get fixed along the way no matter if the user pays monthly, or once. I get the appeal of a subscription for devs, but for users it is not so nice.

    • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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      1 year ago

      Also please ditch the Google Play billing. It’s the reason I had to switch to Relay for Reddit, because I simply won’t have the spyware, that is Google Play Services, on my phone.