XMPP does far more than IRC. And, as I said, there are public servers with nice clients everywhere, such as Monocles Chat for Android, Dino for GNU/Linux/BSD, or PSI+ for Windows. With video chat and everything.
Nothing deeper, skeptical is a fair term but impractical.
Consider instead what the person stands to gain.
In my case I invest in my network because it makes me independent and that is my objective and I am happy to pay for that.
For other people its because they might want to foster open source (freenode for example) and thus your for-profit business or gamer clan isn't the right fit.
Due diligence is the correct term. Not skepticism.
But when I die there needs to be some altruistic nerd who has the capability and desire to take it over.