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
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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I do find it a bit odd to monetize a client for a service which is 100% free. Not necessarily against it, but it bothers me slightly.
I have to laugh at the 100% free moniker. Sure, the CODE is free. Do you seriously think hosting, domains, certificates, maintenance, and everything that goes into an instance just poofs out of nowhere? Seriously?
Lemmy and Mastodon are both paid products. Maybe you don't pay (and you should) but you should disabuse yourself of the illusion that Lemmy just happens.
Even code is not free. Any decent developer writing code does so with an opportunity cost. If those developers want to provide that software to others for free, that’s great. But it still costs their own time and skills that they could be monetizing. For many people it’s a hobby.
They could also be having a life or idk going to a movie. People that demand software cost $0 either never programmed anything more than a few hundred lines or are iq 2000 coding perfect fully complete applications in ten minutes using cat >
I think the majority of people who demand software cost $0 are hobbyists who write code themselves, but it bothers them that not all developers share their passion. I’ve written a little code and some 3D models that I’ve released under Apache2 / CC-BY, but the vast majority of the code I’ve written in my life was done in exchange for a paycheck.
Probably true. I was a dev briefly and in a limited way. I do it as a hobby. Have a bunch of open source embedded stuff out there and a few other minor things. I don't mind because I did it for me and figured why not share.
Writing a complicated, fully polished, production ready app with a fancy UI is a massive pain for me. So much so that I have never made it that far. I would have to get paid plenty to go to that kind of trouble. Actually no. There's a reason I chose a different career lol.
I guess some people have a talent and passion to do big projects free of charge and open source. Cool for them but no shade to throw at devs that want much deserved compensation!
Certs have been free for years.
Lemny is a "paid product" by your definition, but is still open source...
By 100% free I meant on the end of the client. And it's not like the money from the monetization of sync is going towards hosting lemmy servers.
And you've missed the point again.
You use Lemmy for 100% free because other people pay to keep the lights on.
Sync is no different. The dev needs to eat.
Then we shall upload the dev to a computer so it does not need to eat.
Go ahead and reread my comment.
You might use Lemmy for 100% free, but you're being subsidized by the rest of us who pay the hosts to keep these instances alive. THAT is why Lemmy doesn't have ads.
First off, you say the rest of us. Do you support lemmy financially yourself? (Genuine question, not trying to call you our or anything)
But that same thing can be said about all open-source software. I don't fully get your point. The reason the whole sync thing feels wrong to me is just because all that expensive fancy stuff, whether server hosting or the framework and protocol itself, isn't the service you're paying for. All that is free for the end user. Paying for essentially just the UI seems odd. It'd be like having a desktop environment for Linux that's paid only.
I've gone through this a few times. When he (and his users) realized he wasn't going to continue developing Sync for reddit, he asked us what to do. We requested the Lemmy app. He's always been super receptive to us and we're comfortable supporting him. He's developing it alone and got fucked by a company trying to inflate themselves to cash in on an IPO.
I wasn't asking so much as begging [for Sync]. I kinda wished all the people shitting on the app for gasp charging money would just ignore that it exists and keep using the web. Or go write their own app that is as good and give it away. (Because it's clearly so easy /s)
Fair enough. There's just been a lot of hot takes from people that don't have the full context.
That's for sure. Yikes. So much outrage it seems like. Idk.
Yes the app developer should totally work for free.
Also servers are free to run yay.
Seriously what in the world?
Sync does have it's own servers, that's what ultra is partially. Extra features provided by his servers.
Everyone in FOSS hates Red Hat...you been reading the news?
This is why lemmy may die.
It is not free. It's not close to free. You can use it for free because someone else is subsidizing your use.
But the money comes from somewhere.
I pay proton to use their webmail service, even though email is a free service.
I pay to register a domain name even though typing URLs into a browser are free.
I pay to host my website even though visiting websites is free.
Right?