The described technology is generally directed towards a streaming data storage system that provides different views of a data stream to different applications based on a per-application data expiration policy. Applications that have different needs related to data lifetime management can be registered to read the same data stream, with each application individually assigned a data expiration time period. When one registered application reads the data stream, that application is presented with a view of the data stream that is subject to that application's expiration time period. When another registered application with a different expiration time period reads the same data stream, the other application is presented with a different view, according to that other application's expiration time period. The time periods for a registered application can be set between a minimum expiration period and a maximum expiration period, or set to a default value between the minimum and maximum.