> One literally has to know just one command at the beginning: /join. And then if you Google "IRC commands" If your UX requires needing to google for syntax t

> One literally has to know just one command at the beginning: /join. And then if you Google "IRC commands" If your UX requires needing to google for syntax to type into your program in order to use basic features of the app, there is absolutely no way you are going to take off with people that are used to programs like twitter, gchat, skype, and facebook messenger. I grew up on IRC and have a lot of fond memories of it. I don't particularly miss all the constant rolling brown-out connection issues and functionality/syntax that differed depending on what server you were connected to. It's no wonder someone came in and easily stole the thunder out from underneath IRC. Engineer types might have been keen to how transparently most IRC clients exposed the protocol, but I suspect for the vast majority of users IRC was tolerated, not embraced. I don't think Discord deserves all the credit either, I really think it started with slack being adopted within developer communities and open source projects. Discord got the gamers, Slack (initially at least) got the developers.