Pocket integration, comes at the COST of losing Local Saves

[john9...@gmail.com]

Hitting users in the Pocket with Pocket one could say. We are disadvantaging Firefox users financially.

As I understand it the original recent Pocket (signed) addon; allowed retrieval of locally saved copies without a requirement of an internet connection.


I understand this is still available for locales, or Firefox builds I should say, that do not integrate Pocket.
Google Chrome apparently is similar and also offers local storage for Pocket users.

To some users: Those with low bandwidth, or expensive data, the local storage was conceivably a more important and cost saving facility than saving to Pocket.
Whilst I can understand Mozilla may have an interest in promoting Sync and promoting a version of Pocket that is integrated surely we should not prevent users having the facility they previously wanted, needed, and saved money by using.

Why could we not have let users retain their freedom of choice, integrated or addon, or even both if they so wished.

PERFECT STORM
Not in the question title but why integrate a new feature in a point Release. The support documentation for Pocket and the localisation of that will have suffered due to the decision, both due to the lack of testing, and because of the enforced rush to write and translate the documents. That was further complicated by the fact that the feature is only integrated in some builds. Needless to say that perfect storm broke the documentation system's procedures and capabilities.

[Gervase Markham]

On 10/06/15 17:52, john9...@gmail.com wrote:
> As I understand it the original recent Pocket (signed) addon; allowed
> retrieval of locally saved copies without a requirement of an
> internet connection.

There are other addons which provide this facility, such as Zotero.
Also, you can simply Save As... Web Page (complete), can't you?

Gerv

[john9...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, 10 June 2015 18:12:53 UTC+1, Gervase Markham wrote:

> There are other addons which provide this facility, such as Zotero.
> Also, you can simply Save As... Web Page (complete), can't you?
>
> Gerv

Yes that is true.
Equally it could be argued that We may Sync Bookmarks in Firefox without any need to integrate Pocket. Presumably Mozilla determined that Pocket was a desirable feature worth having.

What I do not understand is why a perfectly good usable addon has to be removed from *some* Firefox builds in order to integrate Pocket.
Who made that decision and on what grounds was it made ?
What is wrong with allowing the user to choose integrate or addon ?

Why do we prevent the free choice to use the old style Pocket in only some Firefox builds. (Or are we heading towards a situation where the Old Pocket is removed as an option for all Firefox users.)


I am able to understand the statement
> Pocket partnership is not about money.
>It is primarily about driving Firefox Accounts sign-ups.
>Firefox Accounts and Sync are a major part of Mozilla's efforts to drive user retention,
>which is a major part of the bigger effort to drive growth in Firefox users.


I don't know whether decisions have been made to try to move Firefox users away from the potentially unreliable Syncing of Bookmarks with Firefox into Syncing with Pocket instead possibly that is part of the reasoning for this odd situation?

[Gervase Markham]

On 10/06/15 19:28, john9...@gmail.com wrote:
> Yes that is true. Equally it could be argued that We may Sync
> Bookmarks in Firefox without any need to integrate Pocket.

Between copies of Firefox, yes. But Pocket's feature set gives you a
great deal more than that. If this was all it was, I agree that Sync
would serve the purpose.

> What I do not understand is why a perfectly good usable addon has to
> be removed from *some* Firefox builds in order to integrate Pocket.
> Who made that decision and on what grounds was it made ? What is
> wrong with allowing the user to choose integrate or addon ?

Because for 99.99% of users that would be a case of pressing the
"Whatever" button. Having both active would clearly be bad UX. So what
you are really asking is "why don't Pocket continue to maintain the
Firefox addon so it can be used as an alternative to the integrated
version, to provide the same functionality". That question rather
answers itself, I think.

> Why do we prevent the free choice to use the old style Pocket in only
> some Firefox builds. (Or are we heading towards a situation where the
> Old Pocket is removed as an option for all Firefox users.)

AIUI, the Pocket team don't plan to continue to maintain the addon version.

Gerv

[Robert Kaiser]

john9...@gmail.com schrieb:

> I understand this is still available for locales, or Firefox builds I should say, that do not integrate Pocket.

From what I know, that's not true. The functionality that we did test
in beta for locally storing was AFAIK disabled everywhere (the code is
still there but not active) because we could not get it up to the needed
quality in the time we had for this release. That doesn't mean it's dead
forever, it may come back, but hopefully not with a rushed push to beta
or release but a decent amount of testing and fixing its quality.

KaiRo

[john9...@gmail.com]

50% of the Worlds Firefox users now have no supported pocket on irefox

Gerv

You have stated elsewhere (sumo)
> 50%+ of the world can't find a Pocket button.

and above

> AIUI, the Pocket team don't plan to continue to maintain the addon version.

These will be the people using the other builds of Firefox.
They had a supported signed Firefox addon. The addon has since been removed from AMO. So those users now have no way of installing and using Pocket at all.

Those who for instance do a *Refresh* as prompted; if for instance: Firefox is slow, not used for a while, or after updates; will also lose the working and installed Pocket extension.

KaiRo

> I understand this is still available for locales, or Firefox builds I should say, that do not integrate Pocket.

>> From what I know, that's not true. The functionality that we did test
in beta for locally storing was AFAIK disabled everywhere

I am not sure whether you are discussing the integrated version when you say this.

Or are you implying that of the 50%+ of the worlds Firefox users
If they had and were using the AMO signed pocket extension that the functionality of that has also been hobbled even though they do not have an integrated Pocket.

AFAIK Google Chrome still has the old type functionality on their Pocket version, and I did note a user state he was migrating to Chrome because of the change.

It still looks to me as if many Firefox Pocket users are losing out because of this integration.

Possibly it is not just losing local saves. Am I now to understand is it 50%+ of worldwide Firefox users loosing Pocket support entirely.
I am trying to confirm exactly what the situation is and Mozilla's reasoning for these changes. The reasoning for the changes is unclear. How to explain and document this for Firefox users is not easy.

Any further explanation and clarification welcome.

Thanks John

[kwhi...@gmail.com]

So why did you release it at all? Without local saves it is merely an inefficient bookmarking tool.

[jee...@gmail.com]

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