The RSS was invented at Netscape in 1995, initially known as "RDF",  it was intended
to be used as a new feature to the "MyNetscape" portal, which would enable users to see
other news sources headlines from other sites on their page.

Besides its purpose, RDF had been considered a "woefully inadequate" format and some
people thought that it could be simplified. The problem is that RDF borns as a proprietary
tool, so anybody who ought to modify the original specification could get in trouble with Netscape.

Dave Winer was one of those who judge the format "too complex for the average user", he
had a company called UserLand and in 1994 he started this new thing at the time called "weblogging".
After trying to get the attention of those in charge, Dave gave up and decided to release
his simplified version of RDF in his blog in 1997, in his post he would call it the "XML version" of it.
An interesting fact is that he now owns one of the oldest blogs on the internet.

After that, he certainly took the attention of some people at Netscape, and in a matter of months,
they renamed the format to RSS and released it with numerous modifications, greatly inspired by Winer's work. 

Everything was good until the Browser Wars(1995-2001) started to get hot and consequently
forced Netscape to focus on its main product, the Browser. With the abandonment of RSS, Winer
took the front and UserLand released a handful of versions of the specification with numerous improvements.

Winer's idea was that the format should remain simple and keep its original purpose. A group
of people then suggested that RSS could have broader applications if new features were added, the
group called itself the "RSS-DEV Working Group" (whose participants included Aaron Swartz), and they got
together to release the "RSS 1.0" version in 2000.

A couple of years later, at the end of 2002, Dave's UserLand, yet in its initial purpose
of keeping the format simple, released "RSS 2.0", which until now is the last popular release
of the protocol that would be widely adopted and still in use 20 years later.

Today RSS is widely used to propagate podcasts and may be one of the reasons for its quick
adoption by many big players such as Spotify, Apple and Google. In the blogging scene, it is
slowly gaining traction again and I hope it consolidates as a good alternative to the proprietary
social media platforms with its segmented feeds.

Since the history is not straightforward, as it occurs together with other important historical
facts regarding the web, I've listed the sources below. If you have any suggestions email me at lorran@lorran.online.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework
https://www.w3.org/Press/RDF
http://rss-specifications.com/history-rss.htm
https://twobithistory.org/2018/12/18/rss.html
https://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html
Dave Winer's post about his first RSS release: http://scripting.com/davenet/1997/12/15/scriptingNewsInXML.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars
http://scripting.com/davenet/about.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UserLand_Software