@atomicpoet IRC is also the backbone of Twitch’s chat since it… works. XMPP is the backbone for stuff from Grindr to Cisco’s messaging solutions. Just because they fell out popularity with end users doesn’t mean that they aren’t still valid solutions for lots of problems that lots of people use every day.
Long after the dust settles, and the VC money has run dry these are the protocols that will still be around for us to use.