Technically, the barrier to entry is as low these days as any other messaging service: you can sign up on IRCCloud and instantly have a friendly browser-based e

Technically, the barrier to entry is as low these days as any other messaging service: you can sign up on IRCCloud and instantly have a friendly browser-based experience without worrying about setting up a persistent client, logging etc. by yourself, and mobile and desktop clients are available. These days the network effects just favour old farts and engineers.