I mean all of that is good and well but basically all of this is just your assumption. Its nice that you "believe" this but you don't speak for the developer.
My issue is we have heard nothing at all from the developer. If the project was alive or just moving slowly I'd imagine we would hear something. Literally anything but we haven't. If youre going to take people's money be direct and just let people know what to expect. It's not difficult to do. That's great you sent issues to the developer when's that update coming to fix it? This week, next year, never......
Great so why can't he take 30 seconds out of a year to say that? I'm sure people would understand. The issue everyone is having is the lack of updates. So essentially yes it is abandoned. No updates either way, no word from developer either way been over a year = abandoned.
Great he responded to you but did he say when the next update will be? Or explain the lack of updates? I mean we could all makes guesses but the fact of the matter is it's been abandoned and in its current state is broken. There is no reason to use it.
Additionally this is hurting Lemmy in general. People will try to use sync for Lemmy because it's familiar and not realize the issues they are having are with sync because it's broken not Lemmy. Then stop using Lemmy. I know you're well intentioned but you shouldn't give people hope when you know nothing more than anyone else.