I still do.

The AIMs and MSNs and Skypes came and went. Now it's the WhatsApps and Discords. Every one of them trying to reinvent the wheel the should have just been fixed 20 years ago.

But why has nobody sat down and said, "Here's a better IRC, here's a reference client, here's the source code, knock yourself out."

It's still not too late you know. In fact, there has never been a better time (and need) to revamp those classic platforms for the modern era. With services like GitHub and AWS, it should be easier than ever to collaborate on building ever better clients and hosting servers etc.

Here's my wishlist for improvements over what I can remember of IRC:

• Mandatory encryption for client-to-server and direct peer-to-peer.

• Server-side chat history, spam filtering and DOS resistance.

• Ability to send binary data like images, audio, video and arbitrary files in public channels and private chats.

• Message deletion and temporary messages.

Basically a decentralized Discord (which is a centralized IRC to begin with.)