[xeeeeeeeeeeenu]

While the technical problems were certainly one of the main factors contributing to the decline of XMPP, I think that branding was also a big issue. They had a perfectly good name that was gaining traction ("Jabber") and then they suddenly changed it to XMPP, confusing everyone in the process.

[MattJ100]

Yeah. This wasn't an intentional thing by the community. The "sudden change" was due to the acquisition of Jabber Inc. by Cisco, which included the "Jabber" trademark. There is a trademark agreement with XMPP Standards Foundation to allow open-source projects to apply to use "Jabber" as part of their name. However, unsurprisingly, the community around the protocol rallied around "XMPP" as the safer term, while Cisco moved forward with their "Jabber" product.

I think it has taken too long for the community to realise what an asset a good brand can be, and that it's hard to rally normal users around a protocol and an ecosystem rather than a product. I think that's growing to change though, with a number of user-focused projects around the ecosystem (including Snikket, the one I'm working on).