It's because fat clients (like WLM, which was Discord's DM UX before Discord) lost because they're not profitable. Thin clients, however, mean you're data mina

It's because fat clients (like WLM, which was Discord's DM UX before Discord) lost because they're not profitable. Thin clients, however, mean you're data minable and get to pay for things that, instead of occupying your and your friends' machine (like custom emotes, animated avys, voice clips), now occupy valuable company server space. My historiography here spans from the present to 2000, though; I have no idea how IRC worked or what people did pre-Yahoo! Messenger or WLM.