I also wanted to throw in a link to a similar service that I run called EmailThis (https://www.emailthis.me). Instead of having to create an account on another website and installing additional apps, EmailThis works by sending the web page (after stripping ads and clutter) to your email.
I'd used Readability, until it shut down (and still have nearly 800 articles now identified only by its rdd.it URL shortener, which is to say, utterly useless to me).
I've been using Pocket for the past two years or so. Unfortunately, the more I use it, the worse it gets.
The basic webpage simplifier aspect of it is fine. The problem is that an archive with more than 100 or so entries in it is effectively write-only. The abililty to search and utilise the store is all but nil.
I've over 6,000 articles saved, with the goal of supporting a research-oriented trove of previously-viewed, vetted, and categorised articles.
It takes several minutes to scroll through my set of tags. There is no text-based incremental search. Nor any other form of text-based search. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The one saving grace so far is the ability to export a list of URLs and tags, though working with that takes considerably more effort.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5x2sfx/pocket_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/688oc9/pocket_...
However it was completely useless for me the handful of times I tried to use it.
One very unhappy moment was when that went away without notice -- service downgrades are sort of the exact opposite of "underpromise, overdeliver".
And ... the search was at best only marginally useful, as you note.
The other antipattern aspects of Pocket, as well as the absolute failure to progress in anything remotely like a useful direction, are exceedingly disappointing.
As I've written in the FAQs [1], one of the key advantages of EmailThis is that you don't rely on any external service. So if a service like Readability goes down, you don't end up losing all your saved bookmarks.
Regarding search & filtering, if you are using Gmail or Outlook, you can set filters that automatically move incoming bookmark emails (that EmailThis sends) into specific folders based on keywords/tags.
You can also leverage the fulltext search that your email client provides.
[1] https://www.emailthis.me/pages/faqs#instapaper-readability-a...
The problem is actually email. I no longer trust it as a secure and private facility.
I've thought of maintaining a local-only email archive as an alternative, which kind of works.
Alternatively, if you were willing to support PGP, and not include metadata in the subject line, that would be an option.
Other than that, I think the idea and service are excellent, and thank you for it, it's just not for me :(