That didn't really answer the question that was asked. IRC is an open protocol. Whats your fear?
There are some seriously paranoid people on HN these days, and it is rather disenchanting to have to sift through all the negativity. Failure to embrace new things and new ways of doing things is a surefire way to irrelevancy.
London Trust Media owns the networks where almost all users are, and either funds and closely works with most client developers, or directly employees those.
That’s the fear.
The IRC protocol isn’t great, nor worthy of protection. The users, the community are.
If tomorrow freenode and snoonet went down, IRC would be forever changed.
