I was excited. I found an inexpensive direct drive Sony Walkman. I’ve gotten into listening to cassettes, a topic I’m sure I’ll cover more soon. It’s a fantastic way to disconnect from my phone a little and actually own music again, and the direct drive Walkmans are among the best ways to listen. Beautiful sounding cassette bliss was just a “Buy It Now” click away. But a little alert stops me. “Seller Caution by Fakespot Guard.” They looked through the seller’s history and found it was short and full of similar reviews stating buyers never got shipping information. Fakespot potentially saved my wallet. It’s not the first time it saved me online.
Now it’s dead.
Mozilla had already put Pocket on life support, pulling their support from the main reason to use the app: the desktop app that could collect your saved articles while you’re using other devices. Hearing that Mozilla was also killing Pocket wasn’t a huge surprise.
Both Pocket and Fakespot existed before Mozilla bought them. Now, just a few years after their acquisition, just two in the case of Fakespot, both useful tools of the web are dead. Mozilla says they “put you in control of a safer, more private internet experience.” But with Fakespot’s death, especially, they’ve made the web less safe. What happens when companies buy up useful apps, only to kill them? Fitbit did it with the Pebble, Apple did it with Dark Sky, and now Mozilla has done it with Fakespot. Often, these smaller companies never see a second chance. However, Google recently released the PebbleOS code as an open-sourced project that will allow its revival. With Mozilla buying and abandoning projects, effectively erasing them from the web, should they do the same? Could liberating these useful tools of the web be the only ethical path forward for Mozilla?
The Death of Mozilla’s Pocket and Fakespot
Pocket was a handy tool for me. I would store news articles on the web via mobile Safari on my phone, and use the desktop Pocket app to view them on my Mac when I was at home. My usage of Pocket went to nearly nothing when they abandoned the Mac app, the only reason I used the service. Pocket enabled me to use Firefox at home instead of Safari on all of my devices. With its death, I’ve been thinking I should consider moving away from Firefox. Firefox is a great browser, but being incapable of syncing my bookmarks with Safari means I can’t easily mark stories to read later. Pocket was my cross-platform and cross-app way of syncing my reading list. Without it, I’ll have to rely on bookmarks. Because Firefox on iOS is severely limited, requiring it use the WebKit engine, but none of the Safari plugins Apple allows their own browser to use, Safari is my best option for mobile. Plugins like Fakespot make using Firefox worth it by making my browsing experience safer than simply making my browsing history slightly more difficult to track. But with it dead, is Firefox really any better than Safari?
Ironically, Mozilla is killing Pocket and Fakespot to help Firefox, or so they say.
The company is killing off two of their services to put more investment in Firefox, the “only major browser not backed by a billionaire.” Mozilla certainly finds themself in a difficult situation. Building out an app at scale with few developers is a risk for a company. Mozilla may be a big name to those who spend a lot of time online, but it’s still a small organization reliant on donations. It’s not a multi-billion dollar company like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or Meta, the companies trying to make the net a more predatory place. When those features may not generate the same attention or revenue as your flagship product, narrowing your focus during times of economic hardship is natural. It may be the only way for a smaller organization to survive. Killing projects and layoffs may be their only tools to stay afloat right now.
Shutdown Specifics
You can no longer download Pocket on any sites as of today. The service will shut down on July 8th. A week prior, the Fakespot will shut down, on July 1st. The “Review Checker” feature within Firefox will shut down earlier, however, on June 10th.
Once these shut down, you won’t be able to use them, even if you still have the app or add-on installed. For Pocket, you can at least export your saves. You’ll have until October 8th of this year to complete that export. After that, Mozilla will delete all their stored Pocket saves and accounts. As of July 8th, any premium subscriptions will be cancelled, with refunds for those who have time left in their prepaid subscriptions.
What Else is At Risk?
Screenshot via Mozilla
Mozilla says they’re planning on focusing more on their flagship product, Firefox. But that’s hardly their only product. There’s also Thunderbird, a legendary email client, Mozilla VPN, Mozilla Monitor, a tool for removing your personal information from personal data collection websites, and Firefox Relay, a phone and email masking service that helps protect your privacy. I actually use a bunch of these. I’m a bit of a Mozilla fangirl. Or, I was. How many of these could be at risk? Mozilla VPN, Mozilla Monitor, and Firefox Relay are at least subscription services, but so was Pocket. What services that I rely on could disappear in an instant?
Firefox is a free service. It makes most of its money setting the default search engine. However, earlier this month, Mozilla noted that their entire company could go under if not for Google. Mozilla is kept up by the monopoly that Google holds over search and the measures that Google goes through to remain on top. Should Google’s search monopoly collapse, our browser choices could become restricted, ironically, to either Apple’s or Google’s. As it is, Firefox is one of the few browsers not based on Chromium or WebKit. The internet could become just a little more restricted (and a lot less private) if not for Google’s monopoly, and Mozilla, who typically stands against such large corporations taking over the net, is now reliant on one. Perhaps they believe focusing on making Firefox a major browser again will save the company.
Reviving “Dead” Tech
Little alerts like this can save your wallet! Screenshot via Fakespot/Mozilla
While Pocket’s usefulness has waned without a desktop app, Fakespot is an incredibly useful tool. It can save people from scams online, fake reviews, and possibly even identity theft. Fakespot helps keep you safe online. Without it, the web will grow just a little less safe again. But does it have to?
Mozilla bought Fakespot just two years ago. Now they’ve killed it. Who knows how long it could have helped users after July had Mozilla not purchased and killed it? Or perhaps it was already dying and Mozilla was able to give it two more years of life? Companies often will buy another company and restrict access to it. Apple bought Dark Sky, which had accurate forecasts using distributed data from phone barometers. The service allowed other developers to make use of their data to make their own weather apps. However, after Apple bought Dark Sky, they blocked this functionality. Fitbit bought Pebble, a possible competitor, and killed the project. Google bought Fitbit and, years later, released the software as an open-source project. Now Pebble lives again.
If Mozilla really is interested in a free, safe, and open web, they may want to consider doing the same for the useful service that protects internet users they just killed. Perhaps someone else would be willing to keep the service going. It uses AI and processes many popular websites, so it’s unlikely someone could run it as a hobby, but at least if it’s open-sourced, there’s a chance someone could pick it back up. Unless that happens, we’ll just have to hope that Mozilla could one day revive the web’s most useful safeguard against bad sellers online. Maybe you should download Firefox, just to help give them a shot.
Sources:
- Lauren Feiner, The Verge
- Mozilla
- Kevin Purdy, Ars Technica