I read a post at webproworld.com yesterday questioning the wisdom of forking Atom off of RSS "at a time when e-mail seems to be loosing its traction." Is having multiple standards a bad thing? Not necessarily, I think. From my response:

An analogy to elucidate my point of view on the subject is this: In the beginning was the web (HTML). Somebody decided that the established format wasn't sufficient to do some things they wanted to do, so they invented XML, which was similar in a lot of ways, but also very different. Out of that came RSS. All of us who have discovered how useful RSS is would probably agree that that was a good development.

Now, some people who'd been using RSS have decided that the established format isn't sufficient to do some things they want to do, so they invented Atom, which is similar in a lot of ways, but also very different. I don't think there's necessarily any reason to think that's going to be a bad thing.

To a degree, those who criticize others for moving to new formats are just being self-centered and selfish. RSS is good enough for them, so they see no reason for anyone to move to something else. What they don't seem to realize is that other formats only exist because somebody out there wasn't getting what they wanted out of the old formats. Who are they to say that everyone else should just be happy with what they've got and not try to start something new?

Still, I agree that in most cases, tools should aim to support all the major formats. Everybody wins when that happens.