[nrdvana]

I was sort of on the fence for whether to keep using IRC, for years. I used to have Trillian and later Pidgin as a multi-network chat client, and when using one of those, it makes perfect sense to idle in IRC channels. Then the networks got so complex that multi-network clients no longer worked, and now everything sucks and I have to open 3 different browser tabs (Google, Slack, Discord) on my workstation, iPad, laptop, etc to keep up with what's going on with my work clients, and remember not to close them. Even with the mobile apps, messages are often delayed or don't generate proper notifications.

Without a doubt, the modern era is worse than the experience I had in the 2000s. But, it's true that threaded conversations make it easier to collaborate. Email and voice calls used to work fine for that, though.

Meanwhile, I discovered https://thelounge.chat/, and since I have to open too many browser tabs already, what's one more? I'm pretty happy with it. It fills in the missing features of IRC like sending files and images, and being a bouncer.