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But I think this is only a problem from a UX standpoint. IRC has DCC, for instance, but it's a matter of building a client which e.g. inlines DCC "attachments" or displays images beneath messages with links. If IRC is truly "revived" there's a chance IRC clients grow or new ones emerge to keep up with "modern" IM systems, and IRC will still have more benefits than these (openness, ubiquity...)

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Forcing content upon others is something I view as an anti-feature. Linking to content that they MAY choose to display (or pre-cache in selective instances) CAN be a feature.

For example, I might allow specific rooms that I know are moderated or specific individuals that I trust to push arbitrary data in to my storage. However I definitely do not want that to happen in a random room of strangers.

DCC has been broken in practice for decades due to NAT. If you use a bouncer and have workarounds for the NAT problem in place, your files will still end up on the wrong machine, and then there is the multi client distribution problem. That's a bunch of problems you need to solve beyond just showing an image "inline".

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