Then there's me, who actively went hunting for where I could pay for this app as soon as I opened it

This dev has never been anything but respectful of his community. I have no qualms paying him the equivalent of 2 beers a year for something I have used for multiple hours a day every day for more than a decade. Easy value proposition.

The targeted ads thing I guess I get, but I haven't had ads on Sync for so long it honestly didn't really phase me because I planned to buy ad free anyway. Hopefully that bit gets streamlined.