Came looking for this comment and was not disappointed.

Technically, nothing.

In practice, who do you know that’s using it and doesn’t run Arch, by the way?

My point isn’t that IRC/XMPP aren’t technically capable.

It’s that they’re not designed for non-technical users.

I want corporate social media to die. Mastodon and Piefed are far from killing the beast, but they’ve made the more progress than most projects have seen in a long time.

I want corporate messaging to die. Matrix is far from killing the beast, but for a little while, at least it was trying.

I wouldn’t mind going back to IRC roots if it could be made more user friendly and integrate voice and video chat.

Good UX/UI goes a long way to make it so non-technical people can join and strengthen the network.

Damn. That sucks. (Edit: Referring to the comments saying Matrix is dead and dying.)

I get that IRC and XMPP are more stable and built around federation from the ground up, but… they’re not Discord replacements.

That was IMHO, the point of Matrix/Element.

Tell me if I’m wrong, but a significant part of a network’s resilience is the number of nodes and users.

Without a glowup or some kind of repackaging, IRC/XMPP are doomed to stay niche.

Well there’s your other problem.

…

…

Next, you’re going tell me a billionaire’s involved somehow!

Well there’s your problem.