> but I don't think I can recommend it to anyone who isn't already probably using it

I wouldn't recommend it to my friends, who were hard enough to get off WhatsApp and into Telegram at least. To my parents, who have trouble enough running Skype. To the girlfriend, who's happy with Snapchat. IRC, even at the very basic level with a GUI or Web client, demands things from users I don't consider realistic to expect from them.

I'm very happy with it the way it is though. Just saying that I won't waste time recommending Arch Linux as a desktop OS to friends who have trouble keeping a Windows install useable for six months.