I don't miss reddit, but this notification hit hard

DeriHunter@lemmy.world to Reddit@lemmy.world – 47 points –

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

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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.

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.

Even more reason not to deal with a dickish corporation and be on the knife edge of possibly being tens of thousands in the red, if you're fresh out of school.

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.

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. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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.

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

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...