When we decided to add a reading list to Firefox, we had two options: build and maintain our own service and integrations, or partner with an established player who had sane privacy and data access policies. We chose the latter.
Pocket began life as a Firefox add-on, and is now integrated into literally hundreds of applications. Embracing that is a reasonable choice in terms of sustainability and value for users.
For what it's worth, I do not believe any money changed hands in the Pocket deal, but I don't know that authoritatively.
And that's what it should have remained! Promote it all you like on your websites, but please let it, and all featurees like it, be separate from the main web browsing functionality, because far from every one of your users wants or needs this!
I, and I'm sure many other Firefox users are deeply disappointed by the Mozilla track record of including questionable features such as this. That's why, I have already started [1] figuring out how to switch to ESR channel by default on all systems that I have control over: I want the security updates, but I don't have the time and effort necessary to browse through all the crap features Mozilla introduces and figure out how to tweak and/or disable them on a six-week basis.
I could care less about their being a third party--we already have that with the search bar (and it's been promised that Pocket integration was just a step towards a more general Reading list API, though I don't know how well that's been followed through with). What annoys me is that baking features like Hello and Pocket into the browser doesn't strike me as "promoting openness, innovation & opportunity on the Web," it just seems like a desperate attempt to regain market share.
I believe the root of this change-in-mission is well expressed in a post by David Rajchenbach-Teller [1]:
While I personally want a browser that is fast, small, reliable
and trustworthy, we have market research that shows us that you
and I are a minority. More precisely, we have market numbers
that shows that users want a Pocket-like feature and are not
going to bother checking if there are add-ons that implement
it.
I would be very surprised if the kind of users who won't check for addons are also the kinds of users who would go out of the way to change their browser (... or even know what a browser is).
And as a long-time user of Firefox, this is what got me to stop using Firefox.
There's been tons of people asking for the removal of Pocket from Firefox including hundreds of posts in the Mozilla governance forum asking for its removal but Mozilla sits there doing nothing claiming "sane privacy" and "oh you can disable it by going to your about:config and finding this key and setting it to false". Package it as an uninstallable extension or get rid of it completely.
That is in fact the plan now, after the feedback Mozilla received on this:
> "Folks said that Pocket should have been a bundled add-on that could have been more easily removed entirely from the browser. We tend to agree with that, and fixing that for Pocket and any future partner integrations is one concrete piece of engineering work we need to get done." https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/firefox-dev/2015-July/003...
> There's been tons of people asking for the removal of Pocket from Firefox
That's true. However, we have surveyed large swaths of our users and found that for all the people that dislike the Pocket integration, several times as many actively do like it. They're not you or me, but barring a significant sampling error, it means the dissenters are a vocal but small minority. Of course, both classes are overshadowed by the proportion of users who don't care one way or another.
> "oh you can disable it by going to your about:config and finding this key and setting it to false"
That's false. From day one, you could disable Pocket entirely by right clicking on it and choosing "Remove from Toolbar" or by dragging it off the toolbar in the customization mode.
baked in browser add-ons shouldn't be a popularity contest. I'm sure a facebook add-on would make tons of people happy as well. Yet you don't have that built-in.
I'm sorry, but this logic doesn't make much sense when you consider the fact that it's a third party service which may not be there next quarter or even next year. How about you just do the right thing and unbundle the extension? Make it an opt-in by default. Not an opt-out.
I'd like to add that there's another issue with bundling third party services like Pocket with a browser. You can't audit the internal security of the service. So, if another security vulnerability is found in Pocket you can't be sure if it's just the extension code (this you can audit easily) or the service itself (this not so much).
Instead of bundling it as baked in to Firefox why not just make it part of a "recommended extensions" section of the installer? Not only do you make the users that do use Pocket happy since it can be installed by default (just make us non-Pocket users uncheck the install extension(s) check box) but it gives users that don't want to use Pocket an option to not install it. And it gives developers a chance to vet extensions they feel may be good to add to Firefox to streamline the install experience such as suggesting password manager extensions like LastPass, Dashlane, or 1Password. Or any other highly useful extension (Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin).
It just seems to me the whole idea of making Firefox a convenient browser has become the kitchen sink approach to the problem rather than focusing on what is the essential web (supporting HTML, CSS, and JS standards). The rest is literally optional to use the web.
I'm confused by your argument that because the service's status may change, it shouldn't be bundled. Couldn't they update to remove Pocket if the service goes away? It's not like Firefox is going to stop development anytime soon.
Pocket is not Facebook. Pocket can go out of business sooner than Facebook will ever go out of business. Including Pocket can actually promote Pocket to get more users, so to some Fx users they suspect there was some money-business deal involved. After all Firefox doesn't bundle Yahoo being the default search in the North America region without Yahoo paying at least what Google was paying.
> However, we have surveyed large swaths of our users and found that for all the people that dislike the Pocket integration, several times as many actively do like it.
Do you have any information to share publicly regarding that survey? Like the sample size, how it was done and things like that.
(Personally, I've disabled the Pocket Integration in about:config)
The specific numbers were shared during a keynote at Mozilla's June 2015 all-hands, but I can't seem to find a public recording or data from that session. My apologies.
And as another long-time user of Firefox, I'm grateful that you keep adding useful things like Pocket. Any news on when the integration ships in non-US locales? That one had me stumped for a bit where I got Pocket on one box but not the other :)
I use Firefox partly because I thought Mozilla's definition of "sane privacy and data access policies" involved client-side encryption. My parents understood that Mozilla couldn't see their bookmarks; now they understand that Mozilla can see some of their bookmarks but aren't sure which. Even if I didn't care about my personal privacy, I still couldn't use Pocket at work because of company policy.
Bloat like pocket/hello is a trap. The original mozilla suite had e-mail, a newsgroup reader, irc chat and html development tools all embedded. Sounds useful, but who used it? Only power users and enthousiasts. I imagine a share of users are enthousiastic about pocket, but it also subtily makes the whole browser less attractive.
Complexity intimidates and scares off users and makes software harder to use. All firefox' competitors are extremely streamlined and simple, and that works. Firefox got popular intially because it was simple. Chrome became popular fast because it was faster and more streamlined than firefox. And by integrating all these extra services, firefox makes itself less streamlined and less useable.
I stick with firefox because chrome has some dubious privacy defaults, but that's really the only advantage firefox has over its competitors from my perspective.
fwiw, I actually use Firefox (I say that because I assume most of the complainers don't) and was thinking of making my own reading-list service, but Firefox integrating with Pocket saved me the trouble. I use the integration many times a day and it's great. Not sure why this gets so much negative attention (it's not like it's spying on you if you don't use it).
Pocket began life as a Firefox add-on, and is now integrated into literally hundreds of applications. Embracing that is a reasonable choice in terms of sustainability and value for users.
For what it's worth, I do not believe any money changed hands in the Pocket deal, but I don't know that authoritatively.