This reads like that old XKCD where someone tries to build a standard that unifies all the existing 14 incompatible standards but it just becomes the 15th incom

This reads like that old XKCD where someone tries to build a standard that unifies all the existing 14 incompatible standards but it just becomes the 15th incompatible standard itself - https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ Getting a critical mass of people to use a chat system is the defining factor of success, not the technical genius or features of the system. Slack is successful because it IS one of those standards that a critical mass of people use and is modern. There are plenty of systems that are far superior. However they are failures because they didn't achieve the critical mass of users.