Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Reactions to the Shutdown

  • Many long‑time users (often since the Read It Later days) are genuinely upset; some describe Pocket as central to their daily reading and information workflows.
  • Others are openly glad: Pocket was seen as unwanted bloat, “forced” into Firefox and something they disabled on every install. Its demise is “one less thing to turn off.”
  • Several note the apparent contradiction: years of HN complaints about Pocket, now many comments mourning it. The thread largely resolves this as different user groups speaking up in different contexts.

How Pocket Was Used (and Why It Faded for Some)

  • Core uses: save‑to‑read‑later, offline reading (especially on commutes/planes), simple cross‑device queue, Kobo integration, text‑to‑speech, and long‑term personal archive.
  • Some valued Pocket’s recommendation feed and “best of the web” curation, calling it a great personalized magazine.
  • Over time users report: worse parsing, broken offline mode, poor search (even on known titles), more sponsored content, loss of “permanent copy” trust, and a controversial redesign—leading many to drift away.

Alternatives and Migration Paths

  • Hosted read‑later/reader apps frequently mentioned: Instapaper, Readwise Reader, Matter, Raindrop.io, Feedly, GoodLinks, BookFusion, DoubleMemory, Perch, etc.
  • Self‑host and FOSS options: Wallabag, Omnivore (self‑host), Karakeep, Linkding, Linkwarden, Readeck, Omnom, Flus, various custom Django/RSS/link-archive projects.
  • Local‑first approaches: Obsidian Web Clipper + markdown, SingleFile or “Print to PDF,” org‑mode files, simple text/markdown bookmark lists, browser tabs as a de‑facto queue.

Data Export and “Permanent Copy” Frustration

  • Official export is CSV with URLs, titles, timestamps and (despite confusing docs) tags; no HTML/text content or highlights.
  • Premium users who paid specifically for “permanent library” / “forever home” feel betrayed that archived copies can’t be bulk‑exported.
  • Users share scripts and tools to convert CSV for Linkding/Linkwarden, to hit Pocket’s API for richer metadata, or to scrape and locally archive each URL; dead‑link risk is widely acknowledged.

Kobo and Device Integrations

  • Kobo–Pocket integration is heavily missed; for some, Pocket was essentially “send to Kobo.”
  • People discuss replacing it with Wallabag (+ KOReader or wallabako) or Omnivore-based hacks and hope Kobo/Rakuten will add a new backend or allow custom/self‑hosted endpoints.

Views on Mozilla and Strategy

  • Strong criticism: mismanagement, high executive pay, dependence on Google search money, repeated pattern of acquisitions then shutdowns (now including Fakespot), and focus on ads/AI instead of core browser quality.
  • Others counter that there’s little money in “just a browser,” and that Mozilla is still the only major non‑Chromium engine; some hope dropping Pocket means refocusing on Firefox, but skepticism is high.

On Read‑It‑Later as a Category

  • Multiple examples (Pocket, Omnivore, others) fuel the view that read‑later SaaS is hard to sustain; users hoard far more than they read.
  • Several argue this should be a browser‑native or local‑first capability, not a cloud subscription with eventual shutdown risk.