Pocket Shutdown

[binarymelon]

I saw in my Mastodon feed that Pocket is shutting down this Summer.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/...ng-whats-next/

Was this already known? I haven't been able to get it working since migrating to a Mozilla account anyway, but it still sucks.

[Cactus Chef]

Yeah, it sucks.

And what sucks even more is that if Mozilla had actually fulfilled its promise years ago to open source Pocket when they acquired it in 2017, we might be able to recover from this by setting up alternative, self-hosted instances. But since they never did...into the void it goes!

[JSWolf]

See the other thread on this topic with a better title.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...26#post4514026

[FlamingPeaches]

I never got into Pocket, kinda wish I had. I think Kobo does need something like Pocket for people who want to send data wirelessly to their device for articles and the like since browsing the web via an e-reader is a bit of a faff most of the time. I wonder if there's a stripped down version of Firefox with reader mode that would work...

Wow, I didn't know that Fakespot was purchased by Mozilla too.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by FlamingPeaches

I wonder if there's a stripped down version of Firefox with reader mode that would work...

IIRC, I believe that's what got Mozilla interested in Pocket in the first place. Reader Mode / Reader View used to have a "Reading List" companion, and Mozilla was looking into having that reading list sync across your various Firefox devices when they stumbled upon Pocket.

So they decided to purchase the thing rather than continue to build their own in-house solution. Now they're shuttering it, and we are left with neither...

[Sixthhokage1]

Looks like it's time to re-up our Wallabag.it subscription and get used to using KOReader for article sync :/

[PeterT]

I've just spent the last hour setting up an Wallabag instance and then installing a Kobo client for it (see wallabako).

It's working but not perfectly yet. The author's documentation does not reflect the current state of the project, but only needed a few simple changes.

Just need to play around a bit more with it.

[stewacide]

Kobo really need to have a replacement up and running before the shutdown. Reading articles is really core functionality.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by stewacide

Kobo really need to have a replacement up and running before the shutdown. Reading articles is really core functionality.

No, reading novels is core functionality.

[jacme31]

Readeck (https://readeck.org) could be an interesting alternative.
I've tested it (self-hosting is the only solution currently offered, but a hosted service will be available soon). It's easy to save content with a browser extension. For the moment, there's no app for mobile devices yet, but there's a workaround.
For now, Readeck allows you to export articles and collections as a single ebook.
We still need to find a quick solution to transfer ebooks to Kobo, as was possible with Pocket, without any hassle. (For now, I'm adding calibre-web and synchronizing with Kobo Sync.)

[FlamingPeaches]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

IIRC, I believe that's what got Mozilla interested in Pocket in the first place. Reader Mode / Reader View used to have a "Reading List" companion, and Mozilla was looking into having that reading list sync across your various Firefox devices when they stumbled upon Pocket.

So they decided to purchase the thing rather than continue to build their own in-house solution. Now they're shuttering it, and we are left with neither...

That's frustrating. I wonder why they don't just open source it, seems more and more companies buy services and shut them down when they can't convert it to pure profit.

Originally Posted by Sixthhokage1

Looks like it's time to re-up our Wallabag.it subscription and get used to using KOReader for article sync :/

Originally Posted by PeterT

I've just spent the last hour setting up an Wallabag instance and then installing a Kobo client for it (see wallabako).

It's working but not perfectly yet. The author's documentation does not reflect the current state of the project, but only needed a few simple changes.

Ooh, that's pretty neat. Does it run the sync and that's why there's a subscription cost? Could you self-host and not pay?

Originally Posted by jacme31

Readeck (https://readeck.org) could be an interesting alternative.
I've tested it (self-hosting is the only solution currently offered, but a hosted service will be available soon). It's easy to save content with a browser extension. For the moment, there's no app for mobile devices yet, but there's a workaround.
For now, Readeck allows you to export articles and collections as a single ebook.
We still need to find a quick solution to transfer ebooks to Kobo, as was possible with Pocket, without any hassle. (For now, I'm adding calibre-web and synchronizing with Kobo Sync.)

Well, that's certainly an option. I personally just sideload my books I buy outside of the Kobo store and keep the rest in Calibre, but this certainly seems like an elegant solution too. I wonder how many of these solutions are just repackaged RSS feeds.

[PeterT]

I do self-host wallabag (or at least host on a low cost platform pikapods). No limits on syncing I was able to import my Pocket saves into Wallabag. Still having some issues with the Chrome wallabagger extension but I'm sure I'll solve that soon.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

No, reading novels is core functionality.

Exactly.

[m-p{3}]

To me it was a selling point that made me tip towards Kobo instead of the Kindle.

But yeah..

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by FlamingPeaches

That's frustrating. I wonder why they don't just open source it, seems more and more companies buy services and shut them down when they can't convert it to pure profit.

At this point, I tend to suspect that the decrease in Mozilla's funding is the likely reason for shutting Pocket down. Most of the funding from government sources in the USA is no longer available which took a big chunk out of their budget.