I can't say it's bad to update the IRC protocol, but I don't think it would make much difference either. What people don't realize with "decentralized" services is that they don't have a good ecosystem anymore. The web stack, which favors centralization, ships with usable encryption, user interface, distribution etc. To achieve similar end results with "conventional" stacks you will spend far more effort with far less developers to choose from.
People tend to dismiss web application development for being careless, but at the same time forget that this is what made these clear text fairly rudimentary protocols popular. Until we get encryption built-in, more robust programming languages and figure out distribution on the desktop it's unlikely that the ecosystem will come back.
People tend to dismiss web application development for being careless, but at the same time forget that this is what made these clear text fairly rudimentary protocols popular. Until we get encryption built-in, more robust programming languages and figure out distribution on the desktop it's unlikely that the ecosystem will come back.