Your sentiment is also frustrating to read as a software engineer. As I stated before, I pay for a lot of services, and pay for their highest tier plans because I feel that they deserve my money.
However, Feedly feels like they want my money first instead of giving me more or better service, and I don’t feel like they deserve my money, so I don’t pay them.
And as stated on another comment: no it's not that bad. I use it free since Google shut down theirs