I had a feeling they’ll put something like this, so I went in every now and then to see how infinity will react. I really loved the app, devs did an amazing job

  • @WhoRoger@lemmy.world
    30•1 year ago

    I find it extremely ironic that all the closed source apps, some with subscription options, are closing or moving to support open platforms, while the prime FOSS app is staying with Reddit and going subscription only.

    • @Xaxetrov@lemmy.world
      10•1 year ago

      Is is because the sole developer was actually a CS student, now looking for a first job (sick what he achieved at his age right ?) so he has no time to change the app to support Lemmy. However he said that should someone pick up the development, it should not be to hard to integrate the new feeds to it.

      See 2nd link in the post.

    • @kingcake@lemmy.world
      5•1 year ago

      It is baffling but maybe he sees that there will be very few decent third party apps and an opportunity to monetize his work. I have seen discussion of scripts that compile infinity from source with a personal API key. So, the FOSS option still being maintained is a win I guess. 🤷🏻‍♂️

      • @WhoRoger@lemmy.world
        11•1 year ago

        True, I just worry that the dev will get screwed by Reddit. If I were a dev or doing some business, I wouldn’t touch Reddit with a very long stick. It’s like poking a huge dung, you can only get a swarm of flies.

        • @Ketchup@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5•1 year ago

          They certainly will be screwed somehow, at some point. If they give this little warning. I doubt Reddit will disclose changes quick enough for there not to be an eventual case of a huge bill randomly, and many “oh shit” moments for the developer

    • Doll_Tow_Jet-ski
      5•1 year ago

      Yeah it’s baffling. I haven’t touched Reddit since the blackout but I still had my Infinity app installed, just out of nostalgia I guess. While the dev has every right to do businesses with whomever he wants, I expected differently from a FOSS project. Now to delete Infinity…

    • @Alkider@lemmy.world
      4•1 year ago

      oof. the only reason I even used infinity was to browse reddit without an account. now there’s less of a reason to use it past July.

    • @abhibeckert@lemmy.world
      3•1 year ago

      I don’t think it’s ironic at all - Infinity is and always has been a Reddit client. Subscription fees seems to be the only possible way for it to continue to be a Reddit client and if only a small number of people are willing to pay, then that’s fine. It’s an open source project and doesn’t need to make enough money to pay a salary. It just needs to pay the API costs.

      Infinity also doesn’t need any of it’s existing contributors to continue using it, they could all move on (perhaps start work on a Lemmy clinet?) and other people might keep developing Infinity. Open source projects change hands all the time.

      If someone wants to make the app into a client for another platform, they can simply fork Infinity. It doesn’t make any sense for Infinity itself to change into a totally different app. And it would be totally different, Lemmy has different features.

      • @WhoRoger@lemmy.world
        1•1 year ago

        It just needs to pay the API costs.

        As I wrote elsewhere, I just worry that the dev will get screwed somehow. While before they only needed to make an app and let it loose, now they’ll need to constantly be on a lookout if their users API usage doesn’t exceed what they’re paying in subscription. Or if a thousand bots buy their app with stolen credit cards and Google holds their money. Or if someone hacks their app/server, figure out their API key and racks up a billion calls in spam.

        They’re turning a hobby dev project into a business, to be exchanging thousands of money between Google, themselves and Reddit, potentially being in the red for any number of reasons, and dealing with taxes and accounting on top of that.

        I mean this is exactly what the Apollo dev said he doen’t want to deal with (he just anticipated a much larger volume than Infinity, but the principle is the same).

        Apparently the dev is just starting their first job and don’t have time to port the app to Lemmy, how will they have time if there’s some disaster caused by Reddit?

        Maybe it will work out for them, but I’d be super careful doing any business with Reddit at this point.

    • @NightOwl
      3•1 year ago

      Real odd. Those who use Foss maybe moving towards trying to cut themselves off from reddit, subscription models are ones that are going to mainly appeal to power users of reddit who don’t intend to stop.

      And I would guess those users would be more drawn to the official app than the third party app, since third party or api might be things they don’t care about.