There are a couple readers that avoid that by providing a calmer experience without a firehose and without background fetching.
https://blogcat.org (I made this one)
https://fraidyc.at (this is the inspiration for many calm readers)
https://cblgh.itch.io/rad-reader (multiplatform and super calm)
Ended up abandoning Fraidycat after it atrophied (a number of the integrations that weren't plain RSS, like YouTube/Twitch, didn't work well, it ended up choking my browser, and then stopped working entirely)... did not know there were so many spiritual successors. Thanks!
Now... if anyone knows of an iOS equivalent, that'd be awesome.