I really don't understand this attitude. The landscape has changed in 25 years, XMPP was built from the ground-up for extensibility. And that was the right approach, since it managed to improve continuously, and is now on par with the dominant alternatives. In that timespan, it survived 2 or 3 generations of messengers. It will survive Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram and others (which, by their proprietary and centralized nature, are prone to enshittification).

For anyone paying attention, it should be the clear "safe bet" for what to try next/keep at hand somewhere.