Oh I don't disagree with you, I'm not delusional enough to think that people are going to move to irc, or that it'll become mainstream, it's just a bit saddening. But the thing is it doesn't really matter because irc is a protocol. I don't ever have to worry about support getting dropped because someone wants to monetize it differently. The protocols will never get closed down all of the sudden because it's not popular enough. I can keep running my server as long as I want, independently of any company's decisions. I got a few friends set up on it years ago, and new people join from time to time. It's versatile enough that I just run bitlbee and have access to a bunch of other chat services over irc, all in one client.
I think people will get tired of not being able to communicate between their silos and if they get locked in enough, won't want to leave their own service for another one. It happened with AIM/MSN/Yahoo messenger, for a little while everything was moving to xmpp. Your AIM account could talk to people on gtalk, etc. It was nice while it lasted.
I think something like Slack but aimed groups of friends rather than development teams.
I play chess and I ride a bike, I have clubs with both of those things and they currently use facebook to co-ordinate and it works well enough but slack would be considerably better I think.
IRC is awesome but it only really handles the talking to people side of things well, sharing files (well), setting events and calendars - the stuff slack does is a huge multiplier.
It's not just connecting that's the problem: How do you implement your own server for slack, without using slack?
Because if that's off the table, the rest of the discussion doesn't matter. Now, of course not everyone will write their own irc-server, or port one to a new architecture -- but without free and open source implementations, any alternative is just another dead end.
Considering slack is doing so much right, I wish they'd realize this, and just either open up slack, or publish a new free/open slack server implementation, along with protocols for federation etc.
As I understand it, many people are getting weary of having to choose between IRC -- which have a number of issues, not the least of which is its (lack of) security architecture (even with TLS bolted on), and "extensions" being limited largely to bots -- and XMPP which is over-engineered.
I suppose the natural next step is something that is to IRC/XMPP as JMAP[1] is to IMAP -- a lightweight protocol, probably json (or: capt'n'crunch)-based -- that tries to combine strengths from IRC/SILC and XMPP without being complex.
If I were running slack, I'd worry about if it was easier to "own" the new protocol, or to port slack to support it after someone else releases a Free alternative to slack.
I think people will get tired of not being able to communicate between their silos and if they get locked in enough, won't want to leave their own service for another one. It happened with AIM/MSN/Yahoo messenger, for a little while everything was moving to xmpp. Your AIM account could talk to people on gtalk, etc. It was nice while it lasted.