And when I was in high school 99% of people didn't know what a disk drive was, much less something fancy at the time like a pen drive.

Now everyone including grandmothers knows what a pen drive is.

And people are using a chat application 99% of the time. Anything they need to know to chat with their friends, they will learn, fast.

IRC did not die because it used ports and servers. That actually had nothing to do with its decline.

IRC was replaced by something without the feudal structure of founders, SOps, and Ops, and the medieval control they had over normal users, muting and kicking people off channels all the time.

It was a social issue, not a technical one.