If you think about it, nothing really like IRC exists nowadays. Slack is similar, but it's more of a work tool, and it has a much smaller userbase than any of t

If you think about it, nothing really like IRC exists nowadays. Slack is similar, but it's more of a work tool, and it has a much smaller userbase than any of the other mass communication tools (~10M). I'd say there's simply no great demand for real-time chatting with large groups of people.