I miss IRC. The simplicity in design is one thing. I think the other part I miss is the pseudonyms and having an identity not be directly attached is another.
I remember joining so many IRC channels to learn about everything in college. You'd get help and be humbled by the many regular names in each channel. There was more of a human element to it as most people simply acted as extensions of themselves.
You think about Slack, Discord, and Teams today and there's a whole corporate or personal identity attached behind each name. You can't always act like you would in IRC. You can't always be blunt and to the point. You can't call someone an idiot or to RTFM in the most sincere way possible.
When things were simple with a single pseudonym and a message, things were great. Now things are much more complex. Threads, DMs, notifications of mentions, bots, gifs, etc. It's definitely been changing quickly, but it was nice when everyone's attention was in one place instead of fragmented in each of these new apps that are just glorified IRC.
> You can't always act like you would in IRC. You can't always be blunt and to the point. You can't call someone an idiot or to RTFM in the most sincere way possible.
You can absolutely still do that in IRC. Tens of thousands of people still use it to communicate.
I remember joining so many IRC channels to learn about everything in college. You'd get help and be humbled by the many regular names in each channel. There was more of a human element to it as most people simply acted as extensions of themselves.
You think about Slack, Discord, and Teams today and there's a whole corporate or personal identity attached behind each name. You can't always act like you would in IRC. You can't always be blunt and to the point. You can't call someone an idiot or to RTFM in the most sincere way possible.
When things were simple with a single pseudonym and a message, things were great. Now things are much more complex. Threads, DMs, notifications of mentions, bots, gifs, etc. It's definitely been changing quickly, but it was nice when everyone's attention was in one place instead of fragmented in each of these new apps that are just glorified IRC.