@gabriel I think XMPP MUCs have the potential to replace IRC channels just for the mere fact that they at least temporarily archive old messages, instead of just only showing messages sent since you joined.
I haven't used Delta Chat, but I think the potential for it is not as a decentralized E2EE messenger, but rather as a user-friendly alternative to PGP/GPG encrypted email.
@xianc78 @gabriel iirc ircv3 at least is planning support for limited history playback. interestingly support in clients AND servers for ircv3 features is pretty good. my guess is that it's because the old line based protocols are very easy to implement compared to "modern" protocols. guess the old internet people did get things right.
what irc really could use is a standard for another transport layer than tcp, that would fix problems with irc on mobile devices.
@xianc78 @gabriel cf. https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/chathistory and https://ircv3.net/irc/ in general.
reliable file transfers and other things like calls also would be nice, but those are best solved out of band with irc doing the signaling part. much like DCC, only less fiddling with firewalls.
@xianc78@gameliberty.club
but rather as a user-friendly alternative to PGP/GPG encrypted email.
Definitely underrated in this regard!