The Strange Persistence of IRC

IRC is one of those Internet technologies that always seems to be on the edge of being declared dead. It has looked old for most of its life. It does not have reactions, algorithmic feeds, typing bubbles, voice rooms, sticker stores, or a product team trying to turn conversation into an engagement funnel. By the standards of modern chat systems, it is almost embarrassingly plain, and yet it is still here. That persistence is not hard to understand if you have spent time with it. IRC does a narrow job and mostly stays out of the way. It gives people named channels, live text conversation, private messages, bots, logs if someone keeps them, and enough conventions to let strangers share a room without needing a corporate account. It is not warm or polished. It is direct. There is a lot that IRC does badly. Channel discovery can be poor. Identity can be confusing. New users may not understand nicknames, networks, channel operators, services, bouncers, or the strange little customs that…