One thing I think some people got it wrong: Decentralization is not a feature, it's a method. (Most) Users won't care whether or not they are using something d

One thing I think some people got it wrong: Decentralization is not a feature, it's a method. (Most) Users won't care whether or not they are using something decentralized, they only care what they can achievement with that software/service. Is it doing better than others on the market? Back to the topic, about why Slack defeated IRC & XMPP: A product -- whether or not it's a online service or a hardware -- needs to keep up with the world. For example: If one day, people started to sharing photos and videos and voices during their online chat session, and your software can't keep up with that, then you will likely loose those people soon enough. Currently, centralized software made upgrading very easy. You have all the control you need to force users to upgrade to your newer and richer client. While in the decentralized world, you may need to beg somebody to upgrade their server to support the newer version of your client (Due to that, you may not dare to upgrade your product that often). Also, decentralized software usually hard to develop, while harder to generate enough revenue to be commercialized or be profitable. When clever people needs to survive, they will save the trouble and feed themselves (make money) first. I'm not saying work on something decentralized is a bad idea though, we need decentralized service in today's very centralized world for sure. But make sure you can deliver the same level of experience (or be better) of your centralized competitors, then maybe people will start to use it.