(Un)popular opinion: I honestly wish we could go back to using one client (i.e Pidgin or Kopete) for all IMs.

For some people out there it might be a history lesson, but just like now, we used to use multiple IM services for different social circles.

- IRC
- XMPP/Jabber
- Google Talk/iChat
- Localized services (i.e GG or TLEN in Poland)

Just imagine that you could use Matrix, Discord, Telegram, Signal or whatever people use these days in a single app with coherent interface, that would use maybe like 200 - 500MB of RAM (assuming caching from Discord severs and what not).

Instead of having each "webapp" open (which on my desktop usually accumulates to ~2GB of RAM usage idle), you could use a literal potato to talk to other people.

I fondly remember using an ancient PDA (HTC TyTn II with Windows Mobile 6) in high school. It was an absolute marvel to use - mSD card, headphone jack (though via dongle, so how tables have turned), physical QWERTY keyboard and stylus.

It served me for literal ages. I would use it to talk to my friends, watch movies, connect to server in my bedroom running FreeBSD 9.2 over SSH and so on.

All of that on Qualcomm MSM7200 - 400MHz ARM11 (though not sure why I thought it was an XScale, weird) and 128MB of RAM.

I know for a fact that most IM software is unnecessarily bloated, as my laptop lasts a loooot longer on battery if I don't use Discord on it.

This opinion will once again will light my butt on fire, but I believe EU should force companies providing messaging services to open up their APIs and allow using 3rd party clients without ToS bullshit that discord is doing.