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You can still put a web client with persistent chat history in front of IRC. TheLounge is one example [1] [2] and Convos is another. [3] [4]

[1] - https://thelounge.chat/

[2] - https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge

[3] - https://convos.by/

[4] - https://github.com/Nordaaker/convos

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Setting those up isn't quite trivial for the non-programmer user and they have problems with some IRC servers (it's almost impossible to connect to EFnet via thelounge in my experience and convos had a variety of problems).

Agreed. On the upside, you need one technical friend that can set it up for many friends to use. For EFnet and several other networks, you need to get permission from NetOps/NetAdmins or an individual server operator if you don't need the fail-over resilience.

These types of arguments tickle me. Why isn't instagram just a shiny web frontend to a newsgroup?

I am not arguing, just providing alternate options. They are not for everyone.

FWIW, there are also shiny front-ends to NNTP. That would actually be a great way to have a threaded messaging system and attachments.

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