I want open chat protocols so I can use whatever client I damn well please (e.g. Adium, Pidgin, some terminal thing, or a bot made from a little python script,

I want open chat protocols so I can use whatever client I damn well please (e.g. Adium, Pidgin, some terminal thing, or a bot made from a little python script, ...). Whenever I’m stuck using a centralized service (Twitter, facebook, some web forum, whatever bullshit IRC replacement businesses are buying this week, ...) their client invariably does something different than what many people want it to do, but we have no recourse because everything is locked-down proprietary bullshit, even though most of the messages are plain text and could have been delivered just fine by open protocols in 1990. Not to mention these apps are all poorly designed resource hogs that spy on everyone, inject ugly ads, and burn mobile battery.