It is ridiculous though. Mozilla already had a sync infrastructure, it didn't need another service just for bookmarks, "only" a decent additional UI.
To me, the whole Pocket thing always smelled of cronyism. Someone is friend with someone else, and lo, Pocket appears. People get all angry, Pocket's hockey-stick fails to materialise, and lo, Mozilla bail them out...
Not only that, but the original Read-It-Later extension did exactly that: it stored links directly in Firefox's bookmarks system in a "Read-It-Later" folder. Only later did it begin using its own, separate database.
Or in a less negative spin, acqui-hire a group of people you already know you enjoy working together with.
I don't think that there would have been that many other suitors for pocket, so depending on how close they were to just closing the price might be extremely low (or are any numbers making the rounds?). Maybe there is not much acqui in the hire, could have been more like a deal between founders and investors, "allow me to take the brand with me to my future employer".
To me, the whole Pocket thing always smelled of cronyism. Someone is friend with someone else, and lo, Pocket appears. People get all angry, Pocket's hockey-stick fails to materialise, and lo, Mozilla bail them out...