I use a znc bouncer these days because my home ISP is less than reliable some months (I consider "cybering" a channel to be quite rude and try to avoid it at all costs), but I've run that on free tier VM instances before with no trouble, and if you don't have one, it's no big deal for the most part.
I'm connected to about half a dozen servers, some major, some "a dozen user backwaters servers," and it's easily the bulk of my "not with people I know directly" communications, just as it's been for literally the past few decades of my life.
I had the same opinion as you but for better or worse I find myself changing my opinion as a result of new experiences. I have a million things i need to do, fighting with a chat client for security or privacy or basic features isn't one of them.
Anecdotally, I have been burned by irc operators and clients in several ways over the years. Be wary when trusting strangers!
It's not nostalgia. It's quite literally the best way I've found to get deep, weird, technical details on the deep weeds I play in, because IRC has a lot of other people who are similarly skilled in the arts of wizarding at and below the kernel. I simply assume everything said on IRC is public, and act accordingly. I'll move sensitive conversations over to other platforms if needed, but it's not been a regular issue.
And, yeah, I ran an IRC server, I'm familiar with the power of the admins. I'm also familiar with the power of large tech companies, and don't find them more trustworthy.
... my Thunderbird client says "Email isn't dead either."
