IRC (current version) works fine for me. The trick is to front it with ZNC or similar software. Anyway, why isn't this being done through the IETF?
For you. What about the millions of nontechnical people that need an open communication platform? We use IRC at my employer, and the complexity of getting a bouncer set up means that for cross time zone teams, most people miss any conversations that don't happen in their business hours. This has huge effects on collaboration.
Why don't you send them logs of the conversations?