But would IRC be what a post-Discord exodus actually goes back to? Lacking basic modern amenities like seamless scrollback and push notifications is going to be a hard sell for the generation that grew up with Discord. As a sibling mentioned, Matrix is closer to the mark.
Doesn't matter. IRC serves a niche that there's always a community for that no matter how small it'd become. I'd place a bet that it won't die as long as there's computer and internet. Long live IRC.
v3 has a lot of features folks don’t talk about. But XMPP MUCs are still kicking too.
There is also Zulip, that I think is opensource.
Can vouch for Zulip. Threaded messaging is the best.-
> seamless scrollback and push notifications
Both are doable with modern servers and clients thanks to v3 chathistory. Ergo (server) and Goguma (mobile client) in particular make this work very nicely.