A few days ago Dave Winer wrote a good post on the real drivers (from his perspective) of RSS apart from himself was the publishing industry, namely the New York Times in 2002. His reasoning is quite interesting, the tech industry couldn't drive the adoption of a new standard because it would make the playing field too even. It makes sense for competitors to use different standards because it creates lock-in and along with lock-in you have control. It took the publishing industry, who at the time did not feel threatened by the online environment like they do today, took take the standard and put it to use.