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.
I'm not suggesting that they should or even can be forced to change or that lemmy.world admins actually do anything differently.
It's also not about the cost or not being able to afford it. It is about principles and and the ad driven business model being antithetical to the goals of Lemmy. Being federated is one thing, but it is also about moving away from ads. I am fully in support of nearly any monetization of software other than ads and selling user data.
Personally I just can't understand the person who would agree that Reddit was being egregiously corporate minded and greedy to the point that they move to Lemmy and then be ok with adding ads were there previously were none. I'm definitely not going to be using it and I don't even care that much despite my comments here if other people do. I just want to make this point known. I don't want Lemmy to become Reddit all over again and I felt there was a bit of an honor system in place to not do things like that and it has already been broken.
Another point of contention with ads is that everyone is generating the content for free that Sync is injecting ads next to. I don't want to help them make money off of something I do as a hobby even if it is only pennies. This is one of the main reasons I won't use Reddit and have been favor of the federated internet.
You are the first person I've seen here since the show has released that decided to read the book first. I really need to read it at some point, but I am already in the middle of two books for book clubs.
So how would you feel about Lemmy instance hosters adding ads, harvesting user data to sell to third partiess, making paid subscription models to remove said ads they added and then charging for API access?
If true that is a real deal breaker for me. The whole idea of Lemmy is to break away from exploitative data gathering from corporations. If they are data gathering to sell to third parties then what makes them any different than Reddit? 🫤
If I had to guess most of that info is just to feed you ads, but that is already bad enough for me.
I completely agree with someone trying to make some money off of their app, but when it comes to Lemmy I can't agree with injecting ads just so people have to pay to remove them. If it were just about the added bonus features then it would be a lot more acceptable.
Lemmy doesn't have ads and the instance hosters rely entirely on donations.
I must say, this is pretty uncool of Sync for Lemmy developers.
I've also noticed this rather frequently. I kind of assumed the comment count was wrong, but maybe there is some hidden comments from a federation bug.
Based on your user profile it looks like the community you created is actually /c/yamaha_fz09. Another thing to note is that this would be called a community rather than an instance. The entirety of Lemmy.world or Lemmy.ee would be the instance.
I tend to agree. To me just a link to an article without any other input is just spam. I don't see the point in just being the comments section for someone else's site and content.
Most people don't seem to agree, but at least for the community I moderate I try to avoid it myself. I won't stop anyone else from doing it though.
I've read this post and all the comments. It is clear their intention is too cause as much trouble as possible for other instances. What purpose does it serve to let them do it until everyone gets tired of it and then defederate? Might as well get ahead of it and never start.
By pealing off that nice plastic wrap. 😀