Perhaps, but a lot of times, certain discussions take place over chat, and it's beneficial if someone who happens to join a little later in the conversation can

Perhaps, but a lot of times, certain discussions take place over chat, and it's beneficial if someone who happens to join a little later in the conversation can simply read through the chat history to get up to speed rather than interrupting everyone to get some context to the conversation and proceed to ask questions about things that had already been discussed (rather than simply reading and getting the answers that way). Open protocols can certainly do this.