This person’s view is so insular and so self-centered that they truly seem to believe that IRC is not complicated. This is an excellent illustration of how important it is to stay grounded and connected to your real-world user base.
When the irreducible complexity of a problem is met with a simple implementation the complexity has to go somewhere else, usually the user.
This is a silly statement. The technology doesn't embody any 'elitism', back in the day there were many channels/networks with non-technical users. Back when Shoutcast was a thing, servers often had an associated IRC channel where people would make requests, or just talk music, just as one example. This also makes the "keep technically illiterate users away" statement silly, I've seen middle school age kids connect to IRC channels without any apparent difficulty.
I stopped being engaged when the author uses "normalcattle" in a unironic, disdainful tone. Then later on there's praise of RMS. I like the overall message, as a long time daily IRC user, but the contempt seeping from the whole article is a turn off.
This remark, topped with the author's piece on "normiefication", is the kind of intellectual elitism that reliably keeps me away from IRC whenever I think of coming back to it.