Not hating on open source, just let people use what fits their expectations and needs and stop deterring them with gatekeeping :P

UX = user experience

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf
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      1 year ago

      FOSS can pay the rent. But the users that will complain about £20 for a lifetime of ad removal, definitely aren’t going to be the ones that help him should the bank come calling about late mortgage payments.

      • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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        1 year ago

        This is the same crap I left /r/Linux for way back in the day, so so so many people who are all “Linux is the best way and you’re stupid for even considering windows or mac” but unable to see realities. Yes, of course I love linux and FOSS, I use it as my primary driver, but we live in a society where free work doesn’t pay for housing.

        You’re exactly right, most of the “FOSS Open Source supreme” people will look at an app that was lovingly crafted for months, call it garbage, and then demand they make it free. I just can’t even with them.

        Meanwhile I’d love to see the stats on how many hours a week they put into FOSS apps on their own, and if they’ve given up their jobs to code for FOSS apps for the good of the community.

        I’m a developer. I code mostly proprietary stuff for my company. I’d gladly go code for FOSS projects, but so far my bank is just completely unwilling to cancel my mortgage payments, and my electricity, water, sewer, internet, they all want to be paid too, so unfortunately I’m stuck doing this.

        • Melkor@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          I think the issue a lot of folks have is people like yourself always connecting it back to profit/salary. A large portion of us are interested in Linux/technology/foss for personal reasons and this corporate stuff not only reeks but makes enough noise to drown out better long term solutions. Yes I do it professionally too and yes I fight the good fight but we do what we need to do, this dude does not need to do this. UX really just isn’t important when we’re talking about expanding human capabilities, or I should say UX is important but pretty things aren’t. My opinion anyway but I was raised to care about this stuff by one of those wizard beards so to see your attitude is prevalent just sucks, no disrespect and nothing personal.

          • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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            1 year ago

            That’s fine as your opinion, but it’s not a popular one. Many people tried lemmy and left almost immediately because they want a better UI. We come from the old usenet boards so we know what UI was like back then, but now people expect a great UI/UX to use a service. So yes, I understand the principals, but we shouldn’t demonize people who pay money for a better experience, and if you’re a developer I’m sure you know that a good UX costs some money, but a great UX costs a lot of money.

            • NikkiNikkiNikki@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              There’s also a lot of younger techies on the board cause if you even got remotely deep enough you’d have to learn how to use those user board websites to solve your extremely specific problems.

      • Zeeroover@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Lemmy doesn’t have ads. If you have to pay to remove them don’t you think something is wrong with that? Why not pay for the community and useful features instead?

        • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          The ads finance the app, I think that’s perfectly fine (in principle).

          I asked the dev a few weeks ago, this app is literally his livelihood. And he has a pretty good track record of delivering good software. Why not support him?

          • Zeeroover@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            If you think more ads is the solution that’s good for you. Ads are society’s cancer, so I have little choice other than to block it. (Paying to get rid of ads perpetuates the idea that ads are profitable. That’s up to you.)

            • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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              1 year ago

              So the three options for him to keep developing that we know of are 1) Ads 2) Pay for a license or 3) Fundraising. He offers 1 and 2, and 3 is well known to not work, seriously nobody donates. Check out npm fund and how so little people used it that they just removed it.

              If your only argument is “I deserve things that took a lot of time and effort for free” then you aren’t getting much sympathy from me.

              • trafficnab@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                If your only argument is “I deserve things that took a lot of time and effort for free” then you aren’t getting much sympathy from me.

                Well, the user is posting from the piracy instance

              • db2@sopuli.xyz
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                1 year ago

                Check out npm fund

                Instructions unclear, I ran the command and now I have a shitcoin called Bitcoin Cash.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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          1 year ago

          So for one he’s adding an option to fund your instance as well, but also just because it’s an app doesn’t mean that it also doesn’t require money.

          Your argument doesn’t come off as “so both should be free” but to me more like “oh yeah I’m surprised Lemmy doesn’t have an ad option”

          • Zeeroover@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            I’ve been on open source since the early 90s. I know damn well how people make money off of it and who makes money off of it.

            I support none of it if it starts including tracking and ads. It goes against the whole mindset. Google fanboys love it though.

            • Stumblinbear@pawb.social
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              1 year ago

              Then pay to remove the ads. Someone has to pay at some point and it’s either you or the guy already spending his time to make the app.

            • Zalack@startrek.website
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              1 year ago

              That’s why there is an option to disable ads… Everyone wins unless they think this person’s work should be distributed for free.

        • Zetaphor@zemmy.cc
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          1 year ago

          You’re not paying to remove ads from Lemmy. You can continue using Lemmy ad-free on mobile via the mobile site or any of the other PWA’s or native apps. What you’re paying to remove ads from is Sync. The developer has decided that they need to be compensated to sustain the amount of effort developing and maintaining the app requires. If you don’t want to pay that price with cash or your eyeballs then don’t use it.

          Nobody is forcing you to use Sync, nobody is forcing you to see ads. The beauty of a platform like Lemmy is you have the choice to use whatever client you want. That doesn’t mean you’re entitled to any of them.

    • kamenoko@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Upvoted via Sync lol. FOSS is great, FOSS is irreplaceable, but for independent programmers FOSS doesn’t pay the rent.

    • utopianrevolt@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I understand people’s concerns and criticism over the use of Google-based ads, but I have no issue paying for no ads knowing how much work has been put into the app. I’m glad we have some great FOSS options as well (shoutout to Infinity and Thunder, among others!)

    • JDubbleu@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The price is a bit steep for me personally, but I agree. I’m currently on Connect but the call from Sync is strong.

    • ViktorShahter@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      You can make it FOSS and still have some sort of subscription for syncing between devices for example. Tasks.org did it like that.

      Not to mention that you can run something on donations like lichess or F-Droid and have some extra money.

      • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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        1 year ago

        NPM did donations too and found that <0.01% of users paid anything, and the average for even the most used packages made on average $40 a month. That doesn’t pay a full time fry cook, let alone developer