While I'm sure some money exchanged hands, this is obviously not just a marketing move.

We live in a world where VPN are a must if you want to have any expectation of privacy. Giving people easier access to these services is not a bad thing. Mozilla has a privacy-minded vision for the internet. Regardless if you agree with their vision, they are at least following it.

Also, if it's true that Mozilla is auditing ProtonVPN, that is a huge benefit to everyone. The biggest issue with VPNs are you're forced to trust this new company that they'll do as they say with your data (namely that they don't harvest or store any of it). To me, that's a huge thing.

It's also about evangelization, I think. I bet that there is a substantial amount of users of Firefox that do not know what a VPN is, nor how to choose among the very many providers. Without entering in the merit of the choice of provider, I feel it is a good idea, that aligns with the mission of Mozilla and the need of generating income. If I remember correctly, the Mozilla foundation was mainly supported by Google money: having forms of independent income generation is both necessary for any sustainable non-profit, and desirable to maintain, indeed, independence.

You're right, I totally forgot that you can't hide all Pocket details directly. They're just hidden in menus I never use, so I didn't notice.