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Comment by Gigachad | Hacker News Reader

Irc in general is in a slow death.

We are all in a slow death. Right now it and we are alive with a vibrant IRC community to be thankful for.

IRC as in the 1988 chat protocol, sure.

IRC as a concept has never been healthier. Lots of alternatives, most proprietary, some libre, and more users than ever.

What are you basing this on?

I'm not trying to be difficult, I have used IRC since the 90s and still use it. It's just the best format for chat imo.

But my observation is also that it's dying slowly.

> But my observation is also that it's dying slowly.

Is it? I'm not on it every day, but I don't really notice a change. Isn't it just that it isn't growing, at least not as much as the explosions of web-based, proprietary platforms like twitter or slack?

Well first of all there was no "it" when it came to IRC 15 years ago. There were many huge servers that I never visited like Efnet, Quakenet, dalnet and more.

Me and my little group of hackers would also host our own, and link with other groups around the world.

I think it boils down to accessibility. Even back when I started certain people just couldn't handle the terminal clients so they used Xchat or Mirc. In school in Sweden IRC was actually often pronounced "mirck" because people would refer to the mirc client.

So when web chat came along, with mobile apps too, it just reaches a much wider audience.

So the ones who are left on IRC are old farts, and terminal junkies.

https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php

In 2004, top 10 networks had together around one million of users. now, it's around 150 000.

Top reason of this decline is gamers leaving the network. Quakenet and GameSurge had like 300K users together, now less than 10K (and probably mostly bots or bouncers).

IRC has inspired most major chat protocols, even as much as they've deviated. The fact that there are major networks with tens of thousands and hundreds of users that are running with minimal funding is a testimony to the protocol and the communities around them.

I mostly agree with you. But I still find IRC very useful. My main gripe is that there are few IRC clients that suite my tastes.

As fast as people who grew up with it die ;-)

Slower probably. I doubt there aren't new people getting into IRC. You could've made your comment back when I just got into it, and IRC doesn't really seem any more dead now.

But maybe just as many as old folks leaving it for Matrix et al? Might just even it out in the grand scheme of things.

Most of the people that I find on IRC are 40+.

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