I don't think that would help. The IRC protocol is missing so many messaging features that platforms like Discord have. Just looking like Discord wouldn't fix that.

This very initiative (IRC 3) seems to be trying to fix that. At least parts of it.

What doesnt it have?

Not sure I get your point. Say you use IRCCloud on your phone, you don't need anything else, do you?

IRCCloud is fine, but it's more expensive than Discord, the UX is not quite as nice for reasons inherent to the IRC model, and it's not really more open in any substantive sense (my phone will be running the proprietary IRCCloud application that speaks a proprietary IRCCloud protocol). So why would one bother?

> and it's not really more open in any substantive sense [...]. So why would one bother?

Not for you, because you want to use a turnkey solution, and you don't want to pay for it (instead relying on whatever model they have where you are the product, I guess?). But if you use IRC to talk to me, I can run my own bouncer for free, and I can run the client I want. I can even write my bouncer and my client, and still talk to you.

That's infinitely more open than Discord. It's just that you don't care about others.

> Not for you, because you want to use a turnkey solution, and you don't want to pay for it (instead relying on whatever model they have where you are the product, I guess?). But if you use IRC to talk to me, I can run my own bouncer for free, and I can run the client I want. I can even write my bouncer and my client, and still talk to you.

> That's infinitely more open than Discord. It's just that you don't care about others.

I care a bit about whether you can run your bouncer. But I also care about whether non-technical people can talk to me without an unreasonable level of effort. Expecting everyone else to pay extra for a worse experience so that you can use it the way you want seems pretty entitled.

> Expecting everyone else to pay extra for a worse experience so that you can use it the way you want seems pretty entitled.

Yeah, the price is an issue indeed. I guess that's why we keep having monopolies: it's easier to get VC money if you can ensure user lock-in, and it's easier to make a nice UX if you have VC money.

Now, don't think you don't pay those proprietary messengers. You just pay differently.

IRCCloud regularly gets stuck, has to be manually reset, doesn’t cope well with network changes and seems to have database overloads once per day.

I use it, but discord’s mobile client is a far better experience.

But this is not fundamentally a limitation of the IRC protocol, is it?

It’s got nothing to do with the IRC protocol. The mobile application is effectively a remote for a client running in their datacenter.

I’m just pointing out that… well, discord has advantages other than the protocol.