IRC is more than a protocol, it’s an ecosystem. You cannot simply talk about IRC in complete isolation.
It’s akin to comparing SMTP with chrome.
You have to include the clients and surrounding infrastructure.
It’s akin to comparing SMTP with chrome.
You have to include the clients and surrounding infrastructure.
Again we are comparing a product to a protocol.
I’m just pointing out that this is not a reasonable comparison.
There were multiple web-enabled IRC bouncers (closed products) which would be easy to use for anyone, including non-techsavy people.
But evidently the majority of IRC-users were fine without that and preferred the traditional client-server-protocol realm.