> If it had been branded as a new "reading list" feature native to Mozilla I don't think it would have caused a stir.
I imagine Mozilla's thinking there was that they should position the feature so that people who already use Pocket will realize that Firefox isn't adding a separate reading list (like the Safari one nobody uses), but rather that you can just sign into your existing Pocket account in Firefox, and see your existing Pocket reading-list.
But yeah, in the end that probably wasn't nearly as important as getting people who didn't already use Pocket to see the reading list as "Firefox's reading list" rather than some channel-partner bloatware encroachment.
A happy medium would probably have been if the Firefox reading list was its own skin of Pocket, and synced using your Firefox Sync account, without needing to create a separate Pocket account; but when you first went to use it, it would ask if you want to sign into your Pocket account; and if you do, then your Pocket account would be merged with your Firefox Sync account, because "Pocket Sync is now part of Firefox Sync."
> I imagine Mozilla's thinking there was that they should position the feature so that people who already use Pocket will realize that Firefox isn't adding a separate reading list (like the Safari one nobody uses), but rather that you can just sign into your existing Pocket account in Firefox, and see your existing Pocket reading-list.
That was pretty much how it was viewed at the time (I worked at Mozilla during the Pocket acquisition). It was seen as, "we were going to build our own reading list, but let's just buy this instead and integrate it as /the/ reading list for Firefox."
I agree that the external perception was different, and remains so to this day.
Tbh, all I recall about pocket is it showed me a load of random content which I had no interest in, which felt spammy. And I think it needs a login for some reason? It certainly looked and felt like an external addon rather than a built-in thing.
If it had just been a reading list I'd have been much more interested.
Exactly, it's basically offensive to put any product in a customer's face.
I remember how Microsoft killed OneNote (a rather good note taking application) by (1) trying to shove it up your fingernails, into your armpits, etc. (I remember there being three onenote icons pinned to the task bar) and (2) going 100% cloud as opposed to the XML files OneNote used to leave on your computer that were very easy to parse and build tools to process.
People are automatically going to assume a bundled product is crap because we're so used to drive-by downloads and other dark patterns.
Did you mean making Pocket end to end encrypted like Firefox Sync? Pocket's business model was data mining. Or did you mean making a part of Firefox Sync send your data to a 3rd party data miner? I don't think it would have helped.
Pocket caused a stir because it broke Mozilla's commitments to privacy, interoperability, and FOSS. They removed an open source end to end encrypted reading list feature in development and replaced it with a proprietary 3rd party data miner. They promote it with the lie "privacy is paramount" still.[1] And they responded to correct guesses Pocket paid Mozilla by denying Pocket paid them for the integration until it came out Pocket paid them for referrals. Trying harder to hide Pocket's nature would have amplified the loss of trust.
I think Chrome added the reading list feature recently - I've been using Vivaldi for close to a year now. And while I know Vivaldi uses the chromium engine below, it's nice to have a non-google browser anyway.
If it had been branded as a new "reading list" feature native to Mozilla I don't think it would have caused a stir.
I use Vivaldi now for two reasons: One, it is better than Firefox Mobile, and two, I like the ergonomics of its bookmarks and reading list sync.
Having the ability for the browser to be a suite isn't crazy.