As a long-time IRC fan/user/developer-of-chatbots, I wouldn't entirely mind if things transitioned to a proper successor. (The advantage of IRC is that it's extremely easy to work with/implement on a basic level. The disadvantage is edge cases and things like NickServ which, while not official, might as well be.) Slack seems well-positioned for this, but I'm still somewhat rooting for something more like Matrix ( htt…
It's a shame there wasn't widespread support for XMPP's XEP-0045 (http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0045.html). It was the closest thing to IRC that I believe could've made it the new communication powerhouse in its place with its adoption by Google and Facebook, among others. IRC is great but there's no denying it's dying. It's shed to 60% of its userbase since 2003. It's not gaining new users.
Matrix (http://matrix.org/) looks pretty good, but I feel that it's trying to fill a niche that isn't there. A simple, open (in terms of channels / rooms), chat protocol that doesn't have a complex barrier to entry would work wonders.