This is making a mountain of a molehill. Pocket like functionality is an integrated and expected feature of every browser today. Mozilla decided that instead of making the effort to reimplement this (efforts which are better redirected towards stuff like finally completing per tab processes), they would integrate the most popular extension that was being used for this functionality.
Pocket does not immediately gain any info about the user until the user explicitly opts in.
Mozilla certainly needs to be more transparent about how these companies are selected, and the way this information is first presented to the user. And they have acknowledged they did it poorly with both Telefonica and Pocket, and are looking to improve. But it is in no way an abandonment of their core principles by any stretch of the imagination.
IE11 has a reading mode since Windows 8 I think. The replacement Microsoft Edge browser will also include it.
Firefox for Android actually had its own 'reading list' for a while too. Won't be long until Pocket will be on Firefox for Android by default if this is their direction.
Pocket does not immediately gain any info about the user until the user explicitly opts in.
Mozilla certainly needs to be more transparent about how these companies are selected, and the way this information is first presented to the user. And they have acknowledged they did it poorly with both Telefonica and Pocket, and are looking to improve. But it is in no way an abandonment of their core principles by any stretch of the imagination.