#IRC has come so far since I touched server administration last. You can now log in with an SSL cert. Multiple clients can connect to one account and the messages all get synchronized. You can choose to stay online even when all your clients are disconnected, and the server will just deliver all your messages next time you connect, without requiring znc or other third party software. ChanServ and NickServ are now built-in to the server, rather than being another software package that needs running and configuring. Reactions, replies, in-line images, presence detection, emoticons, roles, and so-on are all here. The only real issue these days is you still have to know your usermodes and chanmodes and servermodes and they're all single letter case-sensitive flags because reasons. But that's entirely the clients fault. These should be checkboxes, not just an edit box for typing letters into. For that matter, clients need to get better at detecting what login types the server offers, and not requiring you to pick one of 11 different available options. We really don't need xmpp and matrix and the dozens of open source federated discord replacements. We just need a good IRC client that's easy to use and fully supports IRCV3.