I reach out to @[email protected] via [email protected]:
Hey,
Nope just been a little snowed under. Hoping to get an update out over the holidays.
Cheers @[email protected]
Great news I suppose. He does need to work on his PR if he wants to keep paying users on the app.
There’s users from Sync for Reddit who understand this is how he works - months of silence and then suddenly an update.
I’m not saying it’s unacceptable, but the lack of consistency and transparency is not for everyone so I understand when people flock to other apps thinking Sync is abandoned.
Thanks for the update, OP.
That method was fine with the old Sync, when it was a low one-time payment, but the new payment scheme came with a promise that it was going to be a full time development. After a year of paying for features I still didn’t have, I’ve switched off of Sync and cancelled my subscription
Yeah seen it a mile away. Like, you can’t live off of 10 subscribers.
I’m betting he had way more than 10. There was a flood of people that signed up when he initially released it, and even today, after a year of “meh to abandoned” effort and a dozen other excellent lemmy apps, lemmy.world is still seeing 5k sync users/month.
It probably wasent “living indoors” money on its own, but surely 1-2k/month is worth spending a few hours a month on keeping an app updated, right? That was what he was promising when he shifted to the subscription model, but old habits die hard I guess.
Sync is mostly free, so those 5k users most likely are running that. I know I am. 1-2k a month is pennies when you are a programmer.
The median wage for a programmer in the US is right at 100k. 1-2k/month is 12-24k/yr.
I cant think of a single person who thinks 12-24% of their yearly salary is “pennies.”
Either way, those “pennies” came with a commitment. He could have done a low one time cost like sync for reddit and faffed about, but instead he committed to subscription payments, and those carry an expectation of support and features. As a programmer, he know this.
The simple fact is that people are paying for something they aren’t getting.
It’s especially bad when he announces that an update is coming in a week and then he vanishes for months without releasing said update.
He does need to work on his PR if he wants to keep paying users on the app.
Yeah, I actually never thought I’d be saying this but I’ve cancelled my subscription last week. I’ve always loved sync for how it “just works” and I still want to get back to using it because I can barely stand any of the other apps. Mostly because of little things that make them feel unpolished. But lately sync has also had these little whacky issues that make it feel bad.
He really should at least allow more people to maintain the app if he’s struggling with time and motivation.
I get that this is probably just a tiny side gig for him but people have paid money, and he’s also getting some ad money, so clear communication and some regular updates should be expected.
Even if his involvement is to just set a roadmap and prioritize features and fixes once a month and let others contribute, that would be something.
