Chozo

Chozo, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

The consistency between apps is nice, but I just absolutely hate the design. There's not enough dark options; I want an AMOLED black theme.

Chozo, 9 months ago

Huh? It's only been out for a day.

Chozo, 9 months ago

Sorry, but FOSS apps won't catch on until FOSS developers actually manage to make them competitive with the mainstream apps. Most FOSS apps are visually unappealing, lacking in advanced features that users actually want to take advantage of, and are poorly-maintained by small, often single-developer teams who are slow to release updates and patch bugs.

Also, most web users are idiots, who should NOT be trusted installing apps outside of their "walled garden" app stores. While most of us here in this thread are probably more than capable of using F Droid and sideloading apps safely, the average user is not. So encouraging people to venture outside of the safety of their restrictive ecosystems is more often than not completely counterintuitive, as inexperienced users who sideload apps are more likely to have their data actually compromised maliciously (ie. ransomware attacks) than by apathetic advertisers who simply don't care enough to abuse you directly.

Don't tell people to use FOSS apps until there's apps that actually meet their needs. This sort of goofy, moral high ground that FOSS supporters use is off-putting for people who just want an app to check the news and post cat pictures on. It also minimizes the hard work that developers like the Sync dev put into their product; not everybody is a hobbyist developer, and some of them rely on their apps producing income in order to sustain themselves and their apps.

Like it or not, non-FOSS apps are a necessity. You don't have to use them, but you shouldn't try to force them onto others.

Chozo, 9 months ago

Those apps catching on early is the reason Lemmy is what it is right now.

No, Reddit killing third-party apps and belittling mod teams is the reason Lemmy is what is is now, just like Digg killing off useful features and letting power users run amok on the front page is the reason Reddit is what it is right now.

Lemmy's existed for years. There've been apps for Lemmy. It wasn't until a Reddit exodus that Lemmy grew beyond a few thousand users. If it weren't for Spez going full Elon-mode, you and I likely wouldn't be here at all. We're not here because there was a good app for Lemmy a month ago, we're here because Reddit became a hostile environment to us.

But to suggest that paid software is better than FOSS because the developers are paid to do it, is again, fucking ridiculous. And equally annoying.

I wasn't suggesting that paid apps are inherently better. Just that FOSS apps are often worse. They lag behind their mainstream counterparts in terms of features, support, and design. And while things like design may not matter to some, it really does matter to most users. Look at any of the top apps in the F Droid store right now, and look at the screenshots. Nearly every app on that story is ugly as sin, and looks like it was developed for Android 2.0. That's an immediate turn-off for most users.

Ask yourself, how many of those apps would you recommend to your parents? Say your folks want an app to manage their budget, can you find a FOSS budgeting app to recommend to them that isn't just unformatted tables of text? Literally every result for "budget" in F Droid is an app that looks like a spreadsheet, does nothing automatically on its own (like syncing your bank records), and requires the user to input every single transaction. They're no better than just using a steno pad and a 4-function calculator, so why would your parents choose that over something like Mint? How do you convince them to use something like OpenMoneyBox over something like Rocket Money?

Being a paid app doesn't necessarily make it better, but historically speaking, apps that produce a revenue stream for the developer generally have more active and long-lasting support in the long run, because they're being built by somebody whose livelihood literally depends on keeping a functional, user-friendly app up and running. Many FOSS apps are developed by hobbyists who don't have the incentive to stay active on the development side, which doesn't instill faith in the average user. Why would I invest my time and energy into a FOSS app that may go defunct in a year or two, when I can just install an app that does the same thing, looks nicer, does more, is easier to use, and has the backing of a company that is likely going to stick around for a while?

FOSS is great, but it's not the solution for everything. Some use-cases simply require an app/platform that has the backing of more resources behind it in order to function and provide a positive UX. It's super important to remember that people like you and me, who are a bit more tech-savvy, are a stark minority of the general population. The average user doesn't care about FOSS, or data security, or privacy; they care about the UX, which almost always takes a backseat in most FOSS projects. Things like the design, ease of use, and compatibility with their existing ecosystem are more important to the average user. And if you want Lemmy to be successful in the long term, you need to cater to the average user. Hence, Sync.

Chozo, 9 months ago

Neither of the other comments here answer your question. They're good advice, but are ignoring your actual request.

Go here: https://lemmy.world/settings

Scroll down and find Delete Account.

Chozo, 9 months ago

Luna? Luna?! LUUNAAAAAAAAA

Chozo, 9 months ago

I've been getting back into RSS lately, after following some advice from somebody elsewhere on Lemmy. I've been using Inoreader, which has a pretty decent interface. They also have mobile apps which sync with each other so you can keep your reading progress across devices.

Chozo, 9 months ago

Inoreader has a bunch of preconfigured news sources you can subscribe to, and it also lets you add direct RSS feeds for and other sites you want.

Most of mine is gaming, tech, and world news. So things like IGN, Ars Technica, Wired, Verge, Polygon, Rock Paper Shotgun, Slashdot, and feeds to a few subreddits I still keep track of.

Chozo, 9 months ago

The DDG app is misleading with Lemmy apps, because it will also trigger off of trackers from links you click on. So if you open a news article posted on Lemmy, and that article has trackers, then DDG can't tell the difference and thinks your Lemmy client is the one running the trackers.

Edit: also:

I plan on buying the app, I assume those attempts will go away without the ads.

This is correct, the developer says that the ad framework will not initialize if you have a license to the app.

Chozo, 9 months ago

Fuck yourself and go step into traffic, Nazi.

Ave Satanas.