Looking now at my experience of hanging out in IRC 20 years ago, it looks the same. Very low entry barriers, toxic hierarchical culture by design (even codified

Looking now at my experience of hanging out in IRC 20 years ago, it looks the same. Very low entry barriers, toxic hierarchical culture by design (even codified in client UI conventions, putting channel ops at the top), lack of safe space unless you cut yourself off the community, lack of commercial incentives to develop moderation and grow user base, perceived lawfulness and so on and so on.