GinDaHood
I think you’re mistaking value for cost. ljdawson doesn’t work for us and sync is not work for hire. Lawrence is not a contractor nor do we have an employer/employee relationship so we don’t owe him a wage for the work he has done or compensation for his time. We have a customer/vendor relationship, and the only thing that matters to the customer is the value of the end product that the vendor is trying to sell.
This is a fair response, and ultimately it is incumbent on the developer to create the value-add that justifies the cost.
I suppose my comment is directed at the sentiment that the developer is “greedy” or trying to swindle consumers in an immature market.
The fair pricing is what the market will tolerate. I’m not saying it’s 100% “justified”; even the dev understands that he needs to tweak it for other regions. But the value add is from the superiority of the app experience, which right now is much better than anything else available (for me; of course this is all subjective). In the future, perhaps other apps will achieve parity with Sync, at which time market forces will cause the developer to course correct on pricing.
I’ll also add that I purchased Sync for Reddit (Pro) for USD$2 nine years ago. If I get nine years out of Sync for Lemmy that’s a bargain at even 10 times the price (which is the current offering).