Izzy

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?

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 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.