Yeah, the ROG Ally particularly makes zero sense to me and misses the point. It runs Windows and it doesn’t have the touchpads.

The touchpads really broaden the utility of the console, from being able to select small UI elements in normal programs to being able to play more mouse enabled games (FTL being the most recent for me).

And Linux is the real special sauce - nobody seems to get why Valve did all that work rather than “just” putting Windows on it. Windows isn’t a selling point (you can put it on the Deck if you want), it’s slow, the UI doesn’t work well on that screen and you lose out on being able to suspend games etc.

I think we need to separate the system from the product. With Reddit they’re the same, with a single owner. With Lemmy/ActivityPub, just like with email, there’s an underlying system that nobody owns. It’s an ecosystem of pieces created by lots of different people.

It is a good thing that people are building products on top of that. Some of them are FOSS and some of them not. As long as no-one gets too much control of the underlying system then that’s great! Users retain choice and can choose FOSS apps if they want, or they can choose something like Sync.

I agree it would be sad if the only apps were paid, but I think a mix is a sign of a healthy ecosystem.

I personally think that a sign of a healthy technology platform is one where some people can make money from it, while the platform itself remains open. To use Linux as an example, it’s wonderful that it’s open source, and it’s great that Red Hat can be a profitable company based on Linux. It’s a good sign and it helps the Linux ecosystem thrive due to RH’s contributions.

For Lemmy there are plenty of free apps - no-one is being forced to use Sync. I’m happy to pay for something that provides some more polish to my Lemmy experience, and doesn’t require anything of anyone else.