(A very important exception.)
IRCCloud just appears to be akin to a BNC. If Bob decides to use IRCCloud or a BNC that is his choice. The rest of the team or group can still use their preferred IRC client because the protocol is an open standard. Would it be my choice for an IRC client? Hell no. But thanks to the protocol being FOSS: to each their own. Try that with Slack/Discord...
> How is it worse for Slack?
Because whatever gamers discuss is much less privacy sensitive than whatever businesses (with for example other people's data) discuss.
I'm also not really sure why anyone would compare Slack/Discord with IRC or XMPP when its clear that these are so vastly different while there are FOSS, open standard solutions for Slack/Discord in existence such as Mattermost (Slack alternative) and Mumble (Discord alternative). You can't even do audio or video over IRC.
If just one team member uses IRCCliud for chat, all tgat sensitive info is now stored on IRCCloud’s servers.
So, hiw exactly does “open FOSS protocol” help in this case?
> What I'm not fine with is being forced to use Slack for work-related material. You don't want such sensitive data centralized. You want to host such yourself
The moment you use IRCCloud all that sensitive data is on IRCCloud’s servers. How does “building a protocol in top of that (on top if what?)” help?
Given we're talking in circles I'll withdraw from this discussion.
How can they enforce E2EE if very few if any IRC clients support it?
What good does “owning the data” do if the data ends up on IRCCloud’s servers anyway (companies who use Slack also own their data).
It’s quite telling that people have such a strong belief in the magic of protocols.
and immediately:
> IRCCloud, whatever it is, probably does not have the same amount of users as the previously mentioned two. But if it uses the IRC protocol (which the name suggests), at least that is open
IRCCloud is a centralised, closed-source entity that stores all your chat logs in the cloud. So, no different than Slack/Discord (with the exception of the protocol).
> Which, given that Slack is used for commercial endeavors, is worse for Slack.
How is it worse for Slack? Slack clearly provides value that IRC (and XMPP) don't. I really wish people would try and see why Slack etc. are popular and used (including in commercial settings), and why IRC/XMPP are not.