I'd up vote you more than once if I could.

Originally when Firefox was released it was the antidote to browser forced add ons that were common at the time. I have vague recollections of Netscape Navigator having whole sections of what was essentially ads forced in the browser menu.

I don't like Pocket being built in, as it should be a browser add on. It also sets precedence. It starts the chain of thought - "Well Firefox has Pocket, so lets add backed in thing X too". I wish it wasn't baked it as it goes against the whole of Firefox's original philosophy of being light weight and everything else an add on.

I'm in the same boat - I like Pocket, but I don't think it should be built-in to Firefox. I don't see the issue with making it an extension/plugin.

I have pocket disabled and I don't see any pocket stuff in Firefox.

But you can disable it quite easily:

about:config -> extensions.pocket.enabled: false

i would find it very surprising if more than 2 or 3% of firefox users have ever used about:config at all

that's not 'easy' for most people.