Somehow I feel like they could have avoided a lot of the backlash by renaming Pocket to Firefox Pocket (and thus being part of the Firefox Lockwise, Firefox Send, Firefox Sync etc suite). Instead of being / feeling like it’s own separate entity, it would have felt like an integral part of Firefox and thus enjoying the same privacy commitments.
Even though I have Pocket disabled I don’t see much of a problem with it being in the browser. Isn’t it the same concept as Safari’s Reading List?