Mozilla is so out of Pocket for shutting down one of my favorite apps

My Spidey sense started to tingle about two weeks ago, when my Save to Pocket context menu item stopped working. I have used Pocket, Mozilla’s social bookmarking service, religiously for a decade — it’s a regular part of my morning reading.

The Chrome extension store had a notice saying it was no longer available, with no time frame for when it would be available again.

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Today, the other shoe fell. Pocket, a subsidiary of Mozilla, is shutting down. I just got the email sent to all Pocket users. Apparently, Mozilla is changing strategies, and Pocket (and all of our carefully curated databases of Pocket content) is not part of their plan.

[Expletive deleted].

The app will continue to work until July 8. Pocket Premium subscribers (that’s me, to the tune of $989 for my wife and me since 2014) will not be auto-renewed, and any subscriptions paid for this year will receive a prorated refund by July.

There is, apparently, some way to download URLs, titles, and notes from saved articles — but not, apparently, the saved contents. This download capability will work until October 8, 2025.

I’ll be back with a follow-up article next week on how to get that data and what to do with it. If any of you has a great idea on this issue, let us know in the comments.

In the meantime, the Pocket team is “here to help.” Sure. I feel bad for the folks who are now out of a job, but ending a “We’re nuking your resource” with “here to help” just rankles.

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This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we get for relying on the cloud. I don’t have a hugely better recommendation, but it does give one pause when so much is tied up in Google, Pocket, Notion, and all the rest.

On any given day, that cloud carpet can be yanked out right from under you.

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