I thought this was a feedback forum. When people are unhappy, what else do you expect… In fact, this forum actively invites people to express how they *feel*!
But cheer up Samuel, if people hate something and rant about it, this means they care enough to stay and make some noise, instead of just quietly leaving to use something else. Surely you *want* this.
I hope you will eventually give this feature a priority that reflects the number of votes…
I’ve mentioned above that I would like to support this, but not right now as I don’t have the ability to handle a bigger load.
If I started working on adding the feature, would you accept the pull request?
No, of course not. There’s no work to perform here. It’s a one line change. I made it a single line in your settings.py file (or local_settings.py file) because I want to give you control on your own servers. But mine are taxed enough as it is and I’m not able to handle the increased load of having to calculate 2x as many unread counts.
What if it was user configurable? Or feed configurable?
That’s what I agreed to above, but that requires some work. I actually intend to allow you to specify non-expiring feeds, but it’ll take some work to make happen.
How about skipping expiration for feeds containing e.g. <1000 unread items? This would solve the issue with rarely updating feeds, and should keep the load on your servers manageable.
I am curious how many people are helped by the feed-specific approach.
Personally, I would want a longer time for all feeds, but I know you’ve said that’s not possible for now.
Perhaps a more specific poll would help gauge if there is sufficient value in building the feed-specific version?
Indeed, I never complained about Feedly, I just left.
“This is a support forum. Please take your negative attitude elsewhere.” So I should just dump my money and move along. Lovely 
“That’s what I agreed to above, but that requires some work.”
Dan Perron offered to help with the coding. Could that work?
Also, to reiterate, I don’t want to put more load on your servers; I don’t need 500+ unread stories per feed. 25 per feed would probably be enough, just as long as the most recent 25 stories can stay unread forever (more on the premium account). Do it by the number of stories, not by the time elapsed.
Somebody offered to help develop a more flexible solution, you said it requires a lot of work. So…
Just to assure. I took a look on both NewsBlur and TinyRSS sources. TinyRSS seems too simple so I dropped it for my use. NewsBlur seems kinda complex, I never worked with MongoDB and Python so I’m not qualified to develop on it. You provided a quick tutorial to install it in Mac, but Mac is the worst platform to be used as server!
Anyway, we understood that feeding and storing feeds take a lot of load. As romlyns said, there are many WebSites that barely make 1 post/week. For this kind of feed, you’re already reading their feeds, so just leave those few articles laying there.
I have a few feeds with lots of posts everyday. They take a lot of load, but those articles are already in there and will stay for 2 weeks anyway.
Explain it better so we can match a solution. What’s exactally expensive in it?
Is it how often feeds reading happens? I know premium account is marketed as reading 10 times more often. I myself don’t worry if it takes longer, I always have unread articles to handle, and if I wanna be quickly updated in some feed I can open it in browser and keep updating.
Is it storage or processing related to keeping them unread? Then make so premium accounts can have 1000 unread articles per feed and they will remain unread for 6 months.
Is it bandwidth, CPU or storage?
We just need to optimize it.
As a scientist I am skimming through Journal article headlines, so articles older than 2 weeks are still relevant. Sometimes live prevents reading articles within 2 weeks, and I (would like to) rely on an unread count until I read the headline. No story is too old for me. Maybe make it a premium feature to change the lenght the unread count is kept?
I never noticed this “sunset of unread items” before, only today. I had like 25+ (focus) news on Lifehacker and today I have 4. wtf?
Shared stories? Blogs? Really, that’s the focus of Newsblur right now? If I want to share I have a million ways (twitter/facebook/plus/email/whatever). But seems like I just lost the only reader with “intelligence”.
Looks like I have to buy a tablet to have a proper rss reader. That’s almost as silly as an rss reader worried about reinventing blogger! Well… time to start looking for another RSS reader… again.
I just signed up for Feedbin and it seems to keep unread items forever. It’s also really fast, though not as feature-packed as NewsBlur. Not affiliated in any way, but the closest thing to a “solution” here.
but does it have “intelligence”?
From what I see, no. I don’t use this feature personally.
aw, too bad, for me that’s a must-have feature. Feedbin is evil, you have to pay for it even before you know if you like it or not 
If you click the sign up link there’s a notice that says “you won’t be billed if you cancel within three days”.
@Diogo - I had to pay for Newsblur before I knew if I liked it or not. It’s hard to get a complete feel from the online demo. Like with this issue, for instance.