It started in 2017 by Jannis, Brandon, and Yaniv. They were annoyed by the lack of easy-to-use tools to make APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) on Ethereum. These APIs are really important for allowing different computer programs to talk to each other.
What an indexing protocol is. Think of it like the index in a book, which helps you find exactly what you need fast, without having to read every page. In computers, it’s like quickly finding a certain data point in a huge amount of data, skipping the need to look through everything.