It's also a machine that generates dumbed-down conversation. The natural slant on IRC is away from intelligent discourse and toward a cross between texting and one-line jokes with friends. There's nothing inherently wrong with this. But it does foster negativity much of the time.
I know hundreds of people who dedicate their lives to the drama and bullshit that is spawned solely by being in an IRC channel. If it went away, these people might just find something productive or positive to do with their lives.
User hderms didn't describe them, I did. And I can show you hundreds of thousands of channels like I describe, on most popular IRC networks (Freenode is a tiny network in comparison).
Also, I challenge you to show me proof of intelligent discourse in any Freenode channel. It's simply not easy, especially in a channel with 5 or more active participants in conversations. Try taking your time to make intelligent points and either people get bored with you or your points get lost in the scrollback.
I think contributors to the many open software projects that both you and I depend on, that use IRC as a first class collaboration tool would strongly disagree with this point of view. I certainly do.
I know hundreds of people who dedicate their lives to the drama and bullshit that is spawned solely by being in an IRC channel. If it went away, these people might just find something productive or positive to do with their lives.