1. There is more transparency with your IRC bot. 2. Joining/forming another IRC channel is cheaper than creating a competitor to Skype. 3. MS looking at your

1. There is more transparency with your IRC bot. 2. Joining/forming another IRC channel is cheaper than creating a competitor to Skype. 3. MS looking at your messages implies that they have the ability to do so. If the conversation were entirely secure, only the other end of the conversation would be able to. 4. MS eavesdropping at all means that when law enforcement comes knocking, they can do so too. Law enforcement is not always your friend. More so in some countries than others. 5. The 'link bot' can be implemented in the client, rather than by a middle-man. 6. Such 'beneficial processing' could be opt-in at the client level. The message is encrypted between clients. Once a client has it, the message can be processed locally or sent off for processing. Sure this adds delay, but it's a trade-off for privacy.