The danger of giving up on IRC and going with a hosted corporate product is the chilling effects on free speech by being at the whims and mercurial mercy of cor

The danger of giving up on IRC and going with a hosted corporate product is the chilling effects on free speech by being at the whims and mercurial mercy of corporate interests. They ought to stay with a self-hosted product that cannot be shutdown by whichever government or corporation decides to ban or restrict speech, thereby ceding what should've been public commons to being under the thumb of a particular government or corporation, and what they deem acceptable, not the community/community leaders deciding. I suggest hosting it somewhere like Iceland.