Curious about the usage of IRC over time, as well as what is 'replacing' its use? reddit / irc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aro2220 · 2017-12-19 08:00 I would like to find information on the number of users (best estimation) of IRC since it's inception through to modern day. I'm especially curious to market share, which year(s) saw a 'peak' of IRC usage, and what is 'replacing' the need for IRC. I'm not aware of any other standards that directly replace IRC (sort of like how SSH more or less replaces Telnet for most cases). I would imagine things like Discord and Slack replace the use of IRC directly, and large forums like Reddit, StackOverflow etc also replace a lot of its use. Social media has sort of pulled non-technical users (the proportion of technical vs non-technical internet users over time would be another interesting statistic) away from ever attempting to use the IRC protocol. I'm just kind of curious how many people still use IRC, how it's declining over time, and maybe why it is still relevant today (best use cases). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Meshuggah333 · 2017-12-19 11:33 I used to be a heavy IRC user but now seldomly connect to a bunch of network. I'm mostly using Discord these days, and of course reddit. Not sure if I'm the norm tho... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- reznikpa · 2017-12-19 13:24 Same here. I was on IRC daily from 01 to 07, but I haven't used it in years. Discord has handily replaced it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- seiyria · 2017-12-19 15:16 I use discord now as well. For some places, we have a bridge from irc to discord. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2017-12-19 15:16 [removed] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aro2220 · 2017-12-19 17:46 I guess that's a product of our times... replacing open source protocols and systems that could be run by anyone with a system that is run by one. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aro2220 · 2017-12-19 17:46 To be fair, if you've ever used IRC in your life you are not 'the norm' ;-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aro2220 · 2017-12-19 17:46 How does that work? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2017-12-19 17:46 [removed] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Meshuggah333 · 2017-12-19 17:54 Good point ;) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- reznikpa · 2017-12-19 18:03 I honestly miss IRC and I'm sad that it's declined so much but Discord just has a lot of more user friendly features. I don't know enough about the technical side of things to know if they could be replicated on IRC but Discords feature set definitely gives it a wider appeal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- seiyria · 2017-12-19 18:07 There's a bot you can run that's an irc to discord bridge. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- songdogmi · 2017-12-19 19:24 I've used IRC for twenty-two years (and I'm not even tired -- ha ha old joke). But for the last few years the only use I've had is to chat with one particular person, so really we should've moved to almost anything else years ago. IRC hasn't been good for meeting new people in at least a decade because so few people are there now. For anyone besides my "special friend," I've used Skype, Yahoo! Messenger (which has broken down for me, so I gave that up), Wickr, Second Life (really!), and a couple of websites that have a chat function but I don't know how they're powered. I was and still am an EFnet user. I think the best days for me there were the late 1990s maybe up to 2003-ish? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheAmazingFailure · 2017-12-19 23:32 https://daniel.haxx.se/irchistory.html IRC History, rough number of users per year on larger networks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FluSolverson · 2017-12-20 01:56 I still IRC daily. Reddit and Facebook groups are stealing thunder. Discord is more of a weird ICQ and MySpace replacement. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aro2220 · 2017-12-20 03:19 Oh sweet. I know the data is sparse. It would be really cool to actually see the values year by year and then compare it to total number of people on the internet (market share is probably a more telling stat -- according to the article raw numbers 2004/2005 was peak, but there's no way 2004/2005 had the most market share) Half the numbers from 2004/2005 to 2011 is very telling. Probably half of even that today. Still, I am wondering if there are uses for IRC today that still no one else can really do. Or if it's just legacy stuff slowly fading away. Unlike Reddit, Facebook, Discord, whatever... IRC is an open protocol that anyone can create and use. I realize that a server is still centralized but the idea of anyone being able to create one of these makes it interesting to me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aro2220 · 2017-12-20 03:21 IRC is more command line based. More powerful if you know how to script and stuff but...yeah...discord is easy and all the new kids are just going to click and run a nice pretty gui in their browser instead of learning some archaic old tech that old fogeys use. Still, that doesn't mean it doesn't have any value or use. It's still a pretty open protocol that anyone in the world can build and host. Can't say that about the centralized Discord or Reddit etc. And after YouTube started the adpocalypse and a lot of the stuff that has happened recently (including cryptocurrencies), I think the idea of decentralized systems, open protocols, etc...is pretty appealing and will continue to be in the future. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ShittyAsFuckUserName · 2017-12-20 05:55 In the 90s I used IRC and ICQ, in the earl 2ks I used MSN. The last ten or so years I honestly haven't used many chat's at all. That is until I got invited to a Discord earlier this year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aro2220 · 2017-12-21 04:21 Hey, we have a timeline in common ;-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2kittens · 2017-12-27 04:00 [netsplit.de](http://www.netsplit.de) has usage statistics of public servers over time. The IRC protocol is still being developed [ircv3.net](https://ircv3.net/irc/) and hasn't been deprecated in favor of some other 'standard' so to speak. However, most of the communities that used IRC back in the day have since moved to other platforms, or have become deprecated themselves. For example [quakenet.org](http://www.quakenet.org) one of the largest networks in the past has seen its active users reduced more than 90% since its peak days because its function (meet people who play online fps games, organise events and schedule matches) has been taken over by services like Steam and the many gaming platforms that come integrated with consoles and such. Online discussion groups moved to various web services where post history could be retained and extended with search functionality. Reddit (subreddits) is a good example of this in present day. Also the integration of media files called for a friendlier platform, see how Discord handles this compared to IRC (again, a present day example, hardly the only one!). File sharing used to be huge on IRC as well, where it is practically non-existent today. Services like Usenet, Napster, Kazaa, Bittorrent, etc. became easier (better) to use and saw their usage grow at the expense of their IRC counterpart. I think you are spot on with your technical vs non-technical assumption. IRC hasn't changed much on the surface over time. It's a bit rough for the average computer user that reads up on their Facebook Wall once a day (seemlessly from every device they own; computer, phone, television, ..). IRC works on a toaster but it requires some expertise, some DIY, not everyone has or can be bothered with this (anymore). Ofcouse this has an effect on where your chat group shifts towards too so you might have to adapt to stay in touch. To me IRC was functionally perfect since the first day i've used it back in the nineties. I still use it every day to chat with my friends around the world (whom i luckily share this opinion with). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- notrox · 2017-12-28 13:28 I just can't get into Discord. I will always wonder when the owners will sell out the users. It might take a decade, but it will happen. Are there any encryption methods that don't break the TOS? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aro2220 · 2017-12-28 16:48 You seem to know more about it than I do. Encrypted comms are a tricky thing. Need both parties to be on board and compotent. Need the encryption to to have flaws that the NSA or someone has the keys to. Need a platform that is decentralized. Hard to get all of these. In the future we may see things like ethereum web 3.0 making stuff like this possible...but for now it's sort of a losing battle. Still, by trying to find better choices we give more power to those that are at least trying. So anything is better than just using Google. End to end encryption seems good but again, you need both parties to be compotent. Irc, at least, is an open platform anyone can develop on...but I read stuff about the issue is you and everyone but one guy might have their encryption working properly and that's all that is required to break everyone's privacy.