I actually solved this without an app. I realized I had around 10k "read later" items in my bookmarks folder in Chrome, and I simply deleted all of them.
I solved this by forcing myself to read my list in chronological order. After a small period it became very obvious that most stuff I'd put in my list truly did not matter.
I think it's more that you always have a bunch of other things competing for your attention on the internet so there's no incentive to read things you once wanted to read.
Even an article you just opened in a tab competes with scavenging for more info on HN/Reddit/Twitter. I don't think that's evidence that the articles are just worthless.
Once, when the internet was out for a few days, I realized that iOS saves your reading list items for offline reading and I was glad to have it. All sorts of interesting articles that I curated. I now work through the reading queue on flights.
