It's widely banned for its tendency to be a DDoS lightningrod, and only slightly less infamous for its impenetrable cliques of time-wasting losers. Was IRC just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or is the protocol responsible for its own failure? And how could we do better?

Discuss!

>>1 IRC was wildly successful until the advent of GUI-based chat clients lured away normal people who simply want to socialise. After AOL and Yahoo stole the well balanced users away from IRC, all that was left was imbalanced and mentally unstable people. Those who had computer skills turned to piracy and hacking; the rest lurk quietly hoping to impress gullible visitors into thinking that they're too important to chat.

In short, IRC was a victim of changing times and technology.

It doesn't seem to have failed to me...

I don't understand why people complain about idiots on IRC. Visit channels with less adolescents, or create your own. You don't need to listen to people on IM, and that applies to IRC too.

Wait, what? When did IRC fail?

It's still going strong, so far as I can tell. Usenet has rotted away since web-based forums became popular, but thus far there hasn't been a superior alternative to IRC. It's remarkably flexible and seems to have been created with incredible foresight for users' needs (another failing of Usenet). Heck, I was using it earlier today, talking in #macintosh on UnderNet about the Boot Camp announcement.

And where is it widely banned? It works on every ISP I've tried it with.