I think the reason RSS didn't pickup among the average crowed is because of Google Reader and browser's native RSS handling.
If only the website owners had implemented easy and known feature for users to "receive" the content, i.e, get RSS via email, get it via SMS, chat, etc, etc....all instead of getting it in your browser or in Google Reader or in some other geeky program....than RSS as a push technology, might have seen a better perspective.
Although there were services available which would translate the RSS for average users, but they weren't close to the original website.
There's nothing wrong with Google Reader, just as there's nothing wrong with Google Plus. It is just so that Google Reader has not seen a mass adoption beyond the niche tech crowd, so it couldn't lift the RSS upwards.
If only the website owners had implemented easy and known feature for users to "receive" the content, i.e, get RSS via email, get it via SMS, chat, etc, etc....all instead of getting it in your browser or in Google Reader or in some other geeky program....than RSS as a push technology, might have seen a better perspective.
Although there were services available which would translate the RSS for average users, but they weren't close to the original website.