Voyager has only 22 sponsors right now and hasn’t even reached his $250/month goal on Github, while Sync for Lemmy is already asking for $100 for a OTP for the Ultra version.

I think this boils down to two reasons:

1. Sync has more features than other lemmy apps out of the gate (since its a continuation of sync for lemmy). No waiting for features it just works, etc.
2. The definition of a sponosor and the definition of a subscription have potential different implications. From my point of view sponsoring encourages development and acts as a way of saying thank you for your hard work. However it is important to note sponosoring doesn't necessarily guarantee that you are entitled/owed specific features or support in a timely manor. By contrast when you pay for sync's subscription the role shifts from a simple donation to a buisness relationship (in a sense). You pay $16 a year and now the dev (lj) is on the hook to make sure features listed in the subscription work for that year, responsible for any support queries, and as its his primary job incentivized to continue development (though you could say this last point is sort of equivalent to sponsoring).

I hope this post didn't come of as a bit to dark, my view points especially on the community/developer relationship in a donation/sponsor context versus subscription context could be way off.

Curious on your thoughts (love the work on voyager 😄 )

Edit Just wanted to link photoprism (a opensource ai powered photos app) subscription policy (I think it does put a interesting case on subscriptions versus donations).

https://www.photoprism.app/membership/faq

Pricing (not sponsoring them or anything just as a point of reference):

https://www.photoprism.app/editions