Mozilla is shutting down Pocket
Mozilla, maker of Firefox — and their own worst enemy at times — is shutting down Pocket on July 8, 2025. The news surprised no one – this is 2025, good things on the internet don’t last. But it’s also a move that has disappointed quite a few, including myself.
I’ve been using Pocket since 2012. That’s 13 years of near-daily use — Pocket was a product that I genuinely enjoyed using every day. Amidst the usual cacophony of everyday internet, bloated webpages, and cluttered app interfaces, Pocket provided a moment of peace and clarity. It was a place you could catch your breath and actually read something — something that wasn’t regurgitated by an opaque algorithm.
So how does Mozilla justify this?
But the way people use the web has evolved, so we’re channeling our resources into projects that better match their browsing habits and online needs1.
Like every other major player, Mozilla has decided the world of the Dead Internet Theory is an end goal, not a cautionary tale. “the way people use the web has evolved” is simply a euphemism for “users are turning to chatbots because search sucks2. Also we’re boarding the AI hype train because our funding might dry up if Google loses its antitrust case3“.
What Mozilla really means when they say “we’re channeling our resources into projects that better match their browsing habits and online needs” is “we’re investing in AI moving forward, and also we’ll start showing you ads4. Why? Because we can!”.
Being online in 2025 means you have to be extremely mindful of any product or service you use every day. The possibility that they could be shut down at any moment should always be at the forefront of your mind, lest you get attached/invested in those tools. Despite what we’ve been told, everything on the internet has an expiry date.
So. This is how a beloved product dies — with a press release.