First thought: I had assumed ICQ was long dead. It seemed impossible anything from that era could still be running. IRC is of course, through the grace of an ecosystem, but it is a tiny fraction of what it was.
Second thought: how do people randomly connect to talk now? Comments sections mostly? I have long ago stopped seeking new connections of any variety.
I’m pretty sure IRC has continued to grow in obscurity, much like Gopher, which, last I checked, was also at an all-time peak and growing steadily but slowly.
I don't think IRC is one of those technologies whose usage count in absolute terms is at an all-time high today. It wasn't exactly mainstream in the early 2000s, but it still had lots of users.
Thanks, that’s interesting info. I think you might be underestmating this part though:
“Here you see the 100 largest and most popular IRC networks that take part in netsplit.de's comparison, but please consider that there are still some big IRC networks that are out of competition"
Nice. I just remembered my 8 digit login and password and indeed, my wife also had an account back somewhere in 2005-2008. (I brought here there but didn't meet her there though)
ICQ was bought by... uhh Russians? Israelis? Something like that... and was changed several times what it actually is; when I tried it recently, it was just a WhatsApp clone; they even removed all the old ICQ number accounts.
I'm actually kinda bummed to hear that. I logged in sometime in the past few years and was pleasantly surprised to see my number from the 90s still worked. Moot point now if the whole thing is being shut down anyways, I guess.
Just getting online used to place you in a small enough pool that making connections was easy -- the fact that you were online in the first place gave you something in common.
Any single online platform has far too many users (and spammers, bots, trolls, grifters, etc.) to make it a good place to meet friends.
This new (and to be euthanised) ICQ isn't the one with the numeric username. Out of curiosity I did (re-)register a few years ago, IIRC it used the user's phone number as the username.
I hate it as well, mostly for the fact that people don't understand how Matrix is decentralized. They think "join matrix.org and create a space" as the same as "creating their own server".
there is an entire generation conditioned to call any group chat or instance a “server” and the pedant in me absolutely wants to scream every time I hear it
I believe the origin, however, was to help it clearly and directly compete with teamspeak or mumble at the time it launched. You would actually have to invest in some sort of hosted server for your group, so the name made sense as a way to help people visualize how discord worked. It’s definitely a relic at this point though.
The comment you replied to is more accurate, as WhatsApp is huge in multiple continents not just in Europe (just not as big in North America as you both point out). For example it's big in South America (and I think Central America too?)
Yes - I think if you pick a country at random it's more likely to have WhatsApp high on the list of communication tools than not, albeit with some of the biggest countries like China also joining the US in being exceptions).
It’s also why, briefly, (2008-2010 ish I believe) blackberry phones were the ones kids wanted because they could use blackberry messaging for free without using up their sms credits.
Second thought: how do people randomly connect to talk now? Comments sections mostly? I have long ago stopped seeking new connections of any variety.