Summary: Based on publicly-available statistics, gathered by surveying known IRC networks periodically, IRC as a whole is waning somewhat in terms of the number of users

BACK in 2011 we wrote a great deal about IRC because of the Freenode situation. "During last connections to Libera.Chat its servers reported an average of 42112 users and 23307 chat rooms," says netsplit.de a reputable tracker or unofficial authority on this matter. This actually represents a decline. When Freenode imploded or just before it put up walled gardens ("SASL") Libera.Chat had gained more users than these. As for us, our IRC network maintained more or less the size it had in 2021. As for IRC in general, it's actually shrinking. Two years ago the number of observed networks was about the same as now (they have an inclusion threshold based on size/maturity), but here is the total number of users across networks:

Tonight

Two years prior:

November 2011

We've managed to keep irc.techrights.org steady over the past 2+ years. The good news is that we're not dependent on any other network, such as Freenode or Libera.Chat, which means we're in control of our own destiny (unlike Twitter users).

Statistics for the Techrights IRC network

IRC is very valuable because it has many clients, including for systems from the 1990s. The interface is decent and it enables rapid, real-time communication, unlike social control media. We'll probably use IRC for another 5 years, i.e. until we reach the 20^th year (we started IRC here in 2008). ⬆