[JimmyRuska]

Imagine, someone makes an IRC client that looks like a discord clone, adds some centralized proprietary emoji/background/mini-game features that touches their own servers, and we go full circle back to IRC once discord IPOs.

[TeddyDD]

There are proposals for ircv3 that aim to add support for custom emoji, reactions, message editing etc. Soju + Gamja + Goguma is pretty usable combo even today.