So many people instantly shelling out 20$ (or 100$ "lifetime subscriptions") the moment an app releases in beta, then immediately bragging about it in comments. I'm using Sync right now and it's cool, but calm tf down people. There's a lot of sunk-cost and weird app tribalism going on.
Also this dev must have made some serious bank in 24 hours, holy smokes
I think it's a principles purchase for a lot of folks. That's money Reddit could have had if it had not gone full asshole.
I'm planning to join the relevant Patreon for my preferred FOSS app, myself. And I think it's cool to see folks willing to use $20 to announce what kind of Internet they want, however they do it.
It's also because I used Sync Pro on Reddit for 10 years, and this is the same exact experience with Sync for Lemmy! I bought Pro something like $3 10 years ago and $20 today. The developer is pretty good.