this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Fediverse

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In many ways, Mastodon feels like rewinding the clock on social media back to the early days of Twitter and Facebook. On the consume side, that means that your home feed has no algorithm (this can be disorienting at first).

Practically, it means that you see only what you want to see and only see it linearly. You never wonder “why am I seeing this and how do I make it go away?”. Content can only enter your home feed via your followed tags or handles and the feed is linear like the early days of social media.

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[–] [email protected] 124 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (16 children)

Put it simply I just hate ads. Anything that puts in ads is terrible. Including Sync for Lemmy who seems to have completely missed the point of getting the hell away from Reddit.

The next terrible thing is automatically generated content and bots, but I guess those are also really just ads.

[–] emptyother 74 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I disagree. I hate ads with a passion too. But as long as we can pay a sum to remove it, it is fair to have a free option with ads. A kinda unlimited "demo".

We are fools for thinking anyone would give away their own time and effort for free forever. We have completely lost the perspective of how much things should cost because of how much we've taken for granted that was paid for with our personal data. And the biggest fools is those who think most software developers and server admins can live reliably on donations alone.

Though Youtube is taking the ads a bit far, maybe. One shouldn't scare away users before they have even become customers.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Absolutely agree with your comment.

I don't really know the solution either... I can't afford to pay for all the things I enjoy online.

I was considering supporting 1 Twitch streamer I enjoy until I saw subscription cost. And if I paid that for every streamer or YouTuber I enjoy, I'd be broke in a single day lol.

I get so much incredibly good info and discussions online about my hobbies, all for no charge.

I used to subscribe on Patreon to my most useful resources/people, but in the end I just could afford it and had to cancel all my Patreon

I hate ads but I don't understand how the internet would function without ads. No one could afford it

[–] emptyother 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I'm not rich enough to pay for every site and service either. A site like rockpapershotgun I left when it paywalled most of its contents, it wasn't important enough to me to pay for. I've never paid for reddit, but i probably should have by how much i used it. Not that I will do that after what they've pulled lately. I donate to a fediverse server to put my money where my mouth is and at least pay for what I want to keep alive.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Agreed, but even if free ad tiers exist, web trackers have to also exist to track everything you do, just in case you use the ad tier again.

Privacy shouldn’t be something unaffordable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Um Linux and FOSS, kinda show you wrong in that many people are happy to see others use their work for feee.

We are fools for thinking capitalist solutions are the solutions we need.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Major Linux contributors are payed by their employers to work on the kernel.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

So you really believe that FOSS is only developed by people doing this for free. Not saying there are no hobby projects developed by people in their free time but thinking that is how it works is pretty dumb. Postgresql, Mozilla, various Linux distributions providing "business solutions" - hell, even the Lemmy developers are funded.

You are a fool if you think all Foss developers are anticapitalist idealists.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The second ads are required the customer stops being the users and starts being the advertisers. This starts the enshittification ~~snowball~~ shitball, Randers.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a good thing you have the option to pay to remove ads and stay the customer, then

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Legit. I paid $3 for Sync back in 2014 and used it daily for nine years.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I'm working on the app full-time and the ads / subscriptions cover development costs.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just wanted to say I greatly appreciate everything that you've done for reddit/lemmy in app development. Without Sync I'm not sure how I'd browse the web without pulling out all my hair due to all the ads and inconsistencies.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wrong. The next terrible thing is mass-AI-generated propaganda and disinformation. Like in the "dead internet" theory

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Next? I think you misspelled "current":-D

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Web of trust solves this problem, until people start intentionally trusting AIs as much as they do other humans, at which point it's no longer a problem.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (8 children)

When's the last time you developed and released a full fledged software project for free?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just paid the one time fee for no ads. Works for me.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is only FOSS bros making a bigger deal than it should, I like FOSS I use FOSS but they need to chill a bit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I hate ads too, but devs have to eat so why should we not pay them when we use an app or service they spend countless time making and maintaining?

Sync is a one-time payment of £17.99 / $20 to remove ads and for the amount I'll be using this app, I think that's absolutely fair. I'll spend more on one takeaway pizza on a Friday night.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It would suck if Sync was the only option but it's not. Nobody forces you to use it. You have such a hateboner for Sync it's ridiculous. So the guy asks money for his work, who fucking cares.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Including Sync for Lemmy who seems to have completely missed the point of getting the hell away from Reddit.

If there is one reason to support ads, only one reason, is for using Sync for Lemmy.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

We have different reasons for getting the hell away from reddit. I came to lemmy because reddit killed sync. I paid like $3 for Sync in 2014 and used it every day until Reddit killed it without seeing a single ad. So, not only do I disagree with Sync for Lemmy missing the point of getting away with reddit, but I also disagree with the notion that sink for Lemmy is in any way bad for having an ad - supported tier when you can pay a negligible amount of money ( $20 in 2023 ) and never see an ad again for the entire lifetime of the app.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Bad content feels much much worse to me. E.g it is so infuriating to see those fake prank videos with tons of likes and positive comments. It kills my hope in humanity every time... At least an ad could be for some interesting legit product. 🫠

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are there ads on Sync? I've been using it exclusively for the last week or so and haven't seen a single one.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I've been using Sync for Lemmy since it was first released and I still haven't seen an ad. I'm pretty sure it's a bug.

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