[0xEF]

I didn't get it either. At first. Then I had a reason to use it.

I am a long time IRC user, and still use that to this day, but in a much less frequent capacity. IRC is a comparative ghost town when thrown up against Discord.

Part of the reason for that is accessibility. Discord does everything IRC does in terms of channels, bots, etc, but packages it in a UI that the masses can easily consume. The addition of voice without having to run Teamspeak or something alongside like we did back in the day. A stable mobile app brings it all together in a portable, easy-to-use package.

I resisted it for awhile, with my younger friends adopting it fairly quickly. Then small businesses and we apps started using it and suddenly half the things I interacted with on a daily basis had their own Discord server. So, I broke rank and tried it

What I found were a few key communities relevant to my interests that were having actual neverending conversations about this I like. Compared to IRC, where response time can be days for any type of question, and that's if someone is in the mood to be friendly instead of crufty. This is the primary reason why I stay in Discord and IRC is just sort of collecting dust in my world. The community either aged out or just became so jaded that they made it inhospitable.

[imdsm]

Had the same experience more or less. I was on IRC during 9/11, and many other major world events, and it's key to my online experiences back in the day, but these days I haven't used it in almost a year. I moved to Slack over a decade ago, for business, introducing it to where I was working at the time, and then five years ago or so, moved to Discord for the community aspect.

These days it's almost primarily all on Discord. There are a lot of features that I don't use, but it's what Slack should have been, back when Slack was meant to replace IRC. The interface works, it's available on my phone, it has call ability, multiple servers within my account and no need to keep a bouncer running.

[0xEF]

Your mention of being on IRC during 9/11 brings back memories. I happened to have taken a sick day and was home watching the news when the first tower fell.

I immediately got on EFNet where I knew a few people that worked for CNN and CNBC at the time. We'd usually get together and talk old broadcasting/radio tech, but not that day.