I would be interested to see statistics from any of the read-it-later services as to how many pages saved to them are, in fact, read later.
My strong suspicion is that the use of such services is largely aspirational, and that the vast majority of the links people save to them go there to die. Perhaps I am simply projecting my own failings upon the larger world, and yes, I am sure you get a ton of use and value out of the read-it-later you use and the intricate workflows and automations you have built around it. I also wonder whether the people who are interested in such services—or are even aware of them, for that matter—might be a self-selecting group.
I understand the idea of saving links to read later. Rather than having an interesting article or post you happen to run across in trying to get something else done distract you from the task at hand, you save it off to place where you can devote your attention to it at some other time when you can focus on it. Sounds great! In reality, though, it seems like it becomes just one more damn thing you have to check and keep up with, yet another personal optimization intended to squeeze ever-increasing productivity out of an already overloaded life.
I guess that is why I would like to see some data. To me, the read-it-later stuff is in the same bucket as intricate note-taking and PKM systems: a way to spend a lot of time and energy fiddling with the way I am managing my work rather than focusing on doing the work itself. But maybe that’s just me.