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Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

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Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#641

Post by lxgr »

gnulinux wrote: post #569
lxgr wrote: post #170

Ugh, and that only months after Omnivore (a really great FOSS "read it later" app) shut down. The one constant of "save your favorite articles and websites offline, forever" apps seems to be that they're... very much not forever. In my view, this not being a native, interoperable feature of web browsers is a failure of the web. I'll be able to listen to a podcast episode I've downloaded as an MP3 forever, and the sam…

I just Ctrl+P print the reader mode output to PDF. Takes 1 second. I've been doing it for years and it works perfectly. I have articles I saved from a decade ago in Dropbox. I'm honestly surprised people use a whole app for such a trivial feature, but yeah it's fair to have special needs. For me, Firefox reader mode is all I need, and you can just save it as PDF.

PDFs are the opposite of what I personally want from an archival format. I primarily want to be able to read the article on any screen size (on the go, when there's no Internet connection), and PDF falls flat for that.

Even on my computer, not many pages have a nice print stylesheet, and the result frequently looks horrible/nothing like the original page.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#642

Post by lxgr »

eviks wrote: post #567
lxgr wrote: post #170

Ugh, and that only months after Omnivore (a really great FOSS "read it later" app) shut down. The one constant of "save your favorite articles and websites offline, forever" apps seems to be that they're... very much not forever. In my view, this not being a native, interoperable feature of web browsers is a failure of the web. I'll be able to listen to a podcast episode I've downloaded as an MP3 forever, and the sam…

You'll be able to read an article you save locally forever as well, that's the easy part

Yes, but saving it locally is the hard/unergonomic part.

There's the great SingleFile extension, but it doesn't always work, and it's a bit of a pain to do on mobile compared to just sending a page off to a reading app via the share sheet on iOS.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#643

Post by eviks »

lxgr wrote: post #642
eviks wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll be able to read an article you save locally forever as well, that's the easy part

Yes, but saving it locally is the hard/unergonomic part. There's the great SingleFile extension, but it doesn't always work, and it's a bit of a pain to do on mobile compared to just sending a page off to a reading app via the share sheet on iOS.

"unergonomic" exactly! But that's the same for an mp3 podcast episode! You can't easily save one on a mobile to auto-sync with your other computers and also allow highighting/tagging/syncing playback position/favorites.

Ergonomic is precisely the core value proposition of all these services, "dumb" save has been possible for any such content since forever.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#644

Post by patch_collector »

kimberli wrote: post #506
podgietaru wrote: post #211

I loved Pocket. I used it nearly daily. I was often in their top n% of users. I paid for it. Then one day they changed the way their rendering worked on iOS. And it destroyed my workflow. I also bought a Kobo E-Reader specifically to use Pocket with it. In short order I found an open-source alternative - Omnivore - and spent my time hacking away at my Kobo to get it to pull from there instead. https://github.com/Podg…

That's so unfortunate--I've also used Pocket for a decade+. I had the Omnivore app installed on my phone as a replacement for the other infinite feed scrolling apps. I'm actually working on an open-source alternative at https://curi.ooo if you're interested in checking it out. It's a work in progress, but I'm building it primarily for my own use because I'm frustrated with all these services shutting down. The Kobo i…

I love how clean it is!

One personal use case that I'd love to see supported (when you get your mobile apps implemented) is the ability to add articles via the 'share' shortcuts. I get mailing lists with links, and I don't want to stop to read an article while clearing out my inbox. So if a link looks interesting, I use the 'share' feature to add it to Pocket, and then I'll go back to it later -- without opening my browser.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#645

Post by onionisafruit »

tomcam wrote: post #471
whyenot wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their reckoning day is coming when Google stops paying them $500m+ a year to be the default search engine. That payment alone account for 80% of Mozilla's budget, and has made them fat, wasteful, and directionless. It's really upsetting to me personally, I gave a lot (time, code, and money) to Mozilla in the early days when they were really struggling.

That makes me very angry. I am fat, wasteful, and directionless but Google pays me nothing.

As the guy from whose line said: You don't need a million dollars to do nothing. Look at my cousin. He’s broke and he doesn’t do shit.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#646

Post by giancarlostoro »

I wish I could just buy out Mozilla outright so that they could you know, focus on building a browser. Alas, my wallets nowhere near big enough to do so.

Leave all the business ventures to a completely different (named too) org. I grow tired of them starting something great and then stopping because they've wasted funds. Like oxidizing Firefox I was really excited for. Sadly they stopped while they had broken amazing ground.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#647

Post by delfinom »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #646

I wish I could just buy out Mozilla outright so that they could you know, focus on building a browser. Alas, my wallets nowhere near big enough to do so. Leave all the business ventures to a completely different (named too) org. I grow tired of them starting something great and then stopping because they've wasted funds. Like oxidizing Firefox I was really excited for. Sadly they stopped while they had broken amazing…

It isn't just the business ventures. Mozilla has pissed away funds on feel good activities that have nothing to do with developing a browser.

Let's not forget giving their CEO raises and bonuses while holding layoffs the same year.

They are cooked.

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#648

Post by Vilian »

fransje26 wrote: post #609
major505 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla is more occupied this days paying multi milionary bonus to its executives and begging users for money they waste on useless projects. Mozilla must die, so Firefox can live.

> Mozilla must die, so Firefox can live. The day that happens, the only thing we are left with is Chrome..

Mozilla ≠ firefox

Re: Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot

#649

Post by delfinom »

wolpoli wrote: post #547
sciurus wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The leadership has been ousted. > This includes major growth in our Boards, with 40% new Board members since we began our efforts to evolve and grow back in 2022. We’ve also been bringing in new executive talent, including a new MoFo Executive Director and a Managing Partner for Mozilla Ventures. By the end of the year, we hope to have new, permanent CEOs for both MoCo and Mozilla.ai... With these changes, Mitchell B…

It's good to know they have brought in new talents. Note that Mozilla Corporations, Mozilla Ventures, and Mozilla.ai mentioned in the articles are all subsidiaries of Mozilla Foundation. If there are issues with the subsidaries' leadership, they could be easily removed by the foundation. If there are issue with Mozilla foundation's leadership then, according to the bylaws, it's not possible for the foundation's board…

>Section 3.3 Election Of Directors, Term. All directors of the Foundation shall be elected annually by the Board of Directors and shall hold office until their respective successors are elected and have qualified, or until their death, resignation or removal.

The board of directors elects themselves? That is dumb

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