IRC is dead in any meaningful way, though. It's a decent technology that's lost to services with all those essential features. We also used to have great conversations while riding bikes with our friends when we were kids. Does that mean employers would be served to hold all of their meetings on bikes?

irc has 2 killer features: 1) it takes some effort to get and stay on. web chatters leave pretty fast. 2) people leave for digital prisons.

the freenode exodus was great, there was no discussion, nothing to explain.

> IRC is dead in any meaningful way

False. IRC is still alive and kicking.

> IRC is dead in any meaningful way

It's interesting how many meaningful conversations I've had over email too, the medium doesn't matter, but it doesn't mean the features aren't useful.