This is the point and the problem. It could but it hasn't. People have been waiting for it to modernize for 20 or 30 years. It took almost 30 years to add a feature people were demanding 20 years ago.
Slack etc. are poor replacements, it's true. No-one is denying that. But for all their flaws it's not hard for them to be better in aggregate when IRC is as stagnant as it is. If IRC refuses to modernise (which it has, generally) these replacements will come, whether they're good or not. I'd really like if we had something good, however we get there. But waiting for IRC to get there has not been fruitful.
This is the point and the problem. It could but it hasn't. People have been waiting for it to modernize for 20 or 30 years. It took almost 30 years to add a feature people were demanding 20 years ago.
Slack etc. are poor replacements, it's true. No-one is denying that. But for all their flaws it's not hard for them to be better in aggregate when IRC is as stagnant as it is. If IRC refuses to modernise (which it has, generally) these replacements will come, whether they're good or not. I'd really like if we had something good, however we get there. But waiting for IRC to get there has not been fruitful.