Subscription models only make sense for an app/service that have recurring costs. In the case of Lemmy apps, the instances are the ones with recurring hosting costs, not the apps.
If an app doesn’t have recurring hosting costs, it only makes sense to have one up front payment and then maybe in app purchases to pay for new features going forward
Much as I liked Sync for Reddit I’m not willing to participate in subscription pricing for something like this, nor am I willing to pay a breathtaking $100 for a lifetime license or a still high $20 for ad removal. Keeping it in perspective, Sync is an Android app that provides nothing more than a nice UI for lemmy.
It will take some time for the number of Lemmy users and Sync customers to ramp up. IMO the dev is trying to quickly replace his lost Sync for Reddit revenue by charging excessively high prices for Sync for Lemmy. He’s lucky so many of you want to pay him but I, for one, will pass on Sync and use other apps with more reasonable pricing.
This comment was written on Infinity for Lemmy which is working just fine.
$16/year for ultra seems pretty reasonable to me.