When Mozilla announced that Pocket would shut down on July 8, 2025, I felt a pang—not just because of my personal attachment to the app, but because of the broader implications about our digital habits. It got me thinking again about two articles I wrote back in 2022, when I still believed Pocket had a bright future ahead. Now, looking back, it’s clear those musings were more prescient than I realized.
The Squirrel Problem: Why Reading Apps Need to Help Us Actually Read
In my first article, I likened Pocket users to squirrels obsessively hoarding nuts. We diligently saved articles, preparing for that elusive quiet moment of reading that rarely arrived. The dopamine rush of effortlessly adding yet another story to our collection was all too real. I joked about it, but looking at use cases from the Pocket community confirmed I wasn’t alone. One user even mentioned having 1,664 articles saved—a clear testament to how saving articles had become its own compulsive activity, disconnected from actual reading.
Pocket’s Missed Opportunity
Yet behind my jokes was a serious critique. Pocket never fully embraced its unique opportunity: helping us actually make time to read. As I argued in my second article, Pocket needed to evolve beyond being a mere “digital attic”. It needed to become a space where users genuinely wanted to linger and read. Instead, Mozilla seemed keen on chasing algorithms and recommendations, the very forces often responsible for our scattered attention spans.
When Robots Reject Human Ideas
Ironically, my detailed, lovingly crafted 12-month plan for improving Pocket was swiftly rejected by Mozilla’s automated hiring system. That robotic response felt emblematic of exactly what Pocket risked becoming—yet another casualty of impersonal tech-driven decisions. I believed Pocket had the potential to stand apart as an intentional reading sanctuary, a digital haven away from endless content scrolling and mindless saving.
Now, three years later, Pocket is indeed shutting down. Mozilla cites evolving online habits and shifting priorities as reasons for the closure. They’ve pledged to carry forward Pocket’s content curation legacy through their Firefox ecosystem, such as their newsletter “Ten Tabs.” Yet, I can’t help but see this transition as a missed opportunity. Pocket’s core idea—intentional, mindful reading—seems more important than ever.
Reflecting on Pocket’s closure, I see valuable lessons for technology creators everywhere. It’s not enough to capture attention; we need to nurture and respect it. Products should help us live better, more mindful lives, not merely amplify the distractions. Pocket’s departure underscores this need profoundly.
A Bittersweet Farewell to a Digital Reading Pioneer
Ultimately, my feelings about Pocket are bittersweet. I can’t really say I’m grateful for its years of service, because I haven’t used it in years. The reading experience was just too bad. But I’m saddened by what could have been, for the promise Pocket represented, an old dream for the internet at large kept alive by this read-it-later service. And I’m hopeful that we’ll eventually figure it out.