Gopher is now in its post-apocalyptic "Thunderdome" phase.
An "application layer protocol designed for distributing, searching, and retrieving documents over the Internet." RSS? No. That's a description of Gopher, from Wikipedia.
I just realized something... RSS is the new Gopher.
That description also describes HTTP, SPDY, and a bunch of other protocols. Relatively speaking, RSS never achieved the kind of popularity. Back in about 1993, there were more Gopher sites than HTTP sites.
In an unhealthy market that's not growing any more (like RSS), things get a lot more stagnant because folks aren't actively making product choices any more and there's not a lot of incentive for new entrants.
I'm betting there's not a ton of innovation in the Gopher market, either.