Freenode traffic on certain channels has gone way, way down, like dead, no action, long-term lurk only. I suspect many 20-somethings (or younger) have never heard of Freenode, and why would they, it does not work on a smart-phone. Meanwhile, rich content services that do work on phones, seem to be very, very popular and growing constantly. Personally, I do not trust all communications to a corporate entity. It would be a better world if distributed FOSS systems, perhaps Freenode? get better somehow