Sorry to split hairs here but RSS is not a protocol but a syndication format: http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification
Atom is also a format but have proposed a publication protocol : https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5023
You're completely correct!
Is it perhaps possible that in this particular case, the difference you so wisely point to between a format and a protocol is possessed of a great and bountiful opportunity to be relevant? The discussion at hand is between "protocols" and "platforms", which might otherwise be cast as "standards" and "products".
Again, you're completely correct. It might just be worth considering that in some cases, a distinction without difference can be of limited value to a discussion where it is at best tangential.
You're right! For users this is absolutely true.
Yet, almost all the companies that you might think of as potentially interested in RSS are platforms. You cannot sell ads in a protocol.
This is the core of why Twitter has replaced RSS. RSS is better for users, but Twitter is better for publishers and platforms. So users wind up following content.