Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat and data transfer, including file sharing.
It started in the late 80s and its still going strong besides more enhanced methods such as Discord et al.
Why do i still use it?
As of June 2023, the the IRC network i use has around 42k users at peak hours.
That's 42k nerds i can pick the minds of on whatever topic i'm concerned with, with regards to IT.