Pocket Was a Place to Save Articles You Never Read. The Dopamine Rush of Social Media Platforms Killed It

I was a Pocket user. Like many others, I didn’t read the articles I saved. Pocket was a service built around deferred, leisurely reading—especially long-form pieces. But it faced an unbeatable rival: social media platforms.

Mozilla is closing Pocket. The company announced it will shut down the Pocket service. On July 8, the platform will stop offering article-saving features and enter “export-only mode.” Users can export their saved articles until Oct. 8, 2025. After that, “user data will be permanently deleted.”

Reasons. Although Pocket helped millions save articles and discover worthwhile stories, its managers said, “The way people save and consume content on the web has evolved, so we’re channeling our resources into projects that better match browsing habits today.”

It was an excellent service. Pocket launched in 2007 as Read It Later, a service that let users bookmark articles to read later. The idea gained traction by focusing on long-form journalism and creative writing. Mozilla acquired Pocket in 2017 and made it one of the flagship services tied to its Firefox browser.

However, people didn’t use it that much. Many users agree that Pocket was fantastic, but they didn’t take full advantage. I regularly saved articles, hoping to read them on my Kobo e-reader, which supported the feature—but I rarely did.

In addition, users misused it. Pocket was so simple and convenient that many of us used it to save not only promising—though not always exceptional—long-form texts, but also news links and tweets. When you opened Pocket, two things usually happened. First, you felt obligated to read the articles, as if they were on a never-ending to-do list.

Second, you jumped to the short articles you could quickly finish to “delete” them from the list. Check. “Read later” became “get rid of it later.” Still, Pocket was excellent, but users weren’t the reason it failed. Something else deserves the blame.

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Doomscrolling. Social media platforms have robbed us of our ability to concentrate. The nonstop dopamine rush from doomscrolling proved too powerful. People love endlessly scrolling through their phones to see the next post. That immediacy and instant gratification have worn down their attention spans.

Slot machines. The algorithms behind social media platforms work like slot machines. Their goal is to keep users glued to the platform. A 2021 study illustrated how easily that happens. The experiment was conclusive.

One group saw a single video and had to choose between watching another or performing a task. Another group saw five videos before being asked the same question. The second group was more likely to keep watching.

Then both groups watched the same number of videos. But the first group consumed more varied content, while the second group stuck to more homogeneous videos. Again, the second group showed more willingness to keep watching instead of doing something else.

And echo chambers. These results reflect today’s reality. Social media platforms flood users with endless content and traps them in echo chambers that reinforce their opinions and tastes. We probably built an echo chamber in Pocket, too, but we did it ourselves—not by algorithm. The real issue is that setting aside five, 10, or 15 minutes to read a long article feels harder than ever amid a flood of images, texts, and especially short videos that are always intriguing, amazing, and entertaining.

A Google Reader moment. Pocket’s closure recalls the end of Google Reader. The search giant shut down its RSS feed reader because, though users loved it, it wasn’t profitable. Like Google Reader, Pocket was a fantastic product—but a niche one. Even in that niche, it was underused.

Digital hoarders. Pocket contributed to our digital hoarding. It was where you saved articles you never read. In that sense, it was less functional than Google Reader, which let you skim headlines via RSS feeds. This urge to save everything without consuming it affects other parts of our digital lives, too—like photo galleries, video collections, and games you download but never play. It’s not that we don’t enjoy the content anymore. We’d just rather watch others do it.

Alternatives. Pocket’s death forces users to look for new places to save articles they may never read. Instapaper remains an option, along with Readwise, Wallabag, Raindrop, and MyMind. Some work with Kobo e-readers, but they aren’t as simple. Damn it!

Image | Pocket

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