There’s still a one-time remove ads/tracking price which is €23 for me, varies by region. The lifetime Sync Ultra is for cloud back-up features, can be ignored.

old.lemmy.world should fix those woes.

I’d believe it’s organic tbh, I was waiting for Sync or Boost to drop before I fully took the plunge. There are probably many others like me for whom those apps and others defined the Reddit mobile experience and the other apps for Lemmy (or the ones I used at least) weren’t as feature rich so it’s an easy choice to make.