Yup, they can probably rebuild ICQ the way it was when I was 16 but they can't make me 16 again.

Hmmm… my wife constantly reminds me that I behave like a 16 y/o child. Perhaps ICQ should be reborn!

Attention: Incoming divorce/separation detected, find shelter soon!

Also, it was a time when being “online” was an active state. Now we’re “online” passively 24/7.

Yes, this is it. "Logging on" and "Logging off" were explicit actions that you took as part of your day, instead of just being perpetually connected and reachable.

The internet used to live in a room.

what made it magical was us being younger. likewise, it's very likely impossible to get that back.

The invitation to join the project's Discord is magical. That's... where all your friends are now anyways.

same with IRC except IRC never went down.

no but apparently you can have some kind of coup on one of the most popular servers and cause a huge dent in it...

Ditto with Usenet albeit there's always cool people there.

... and never will :)

Spaceships bearing our genes will still beam IRC from somewhere down deep in engineering.-

What would be the purpose of launching a decaying lump of monkey meat into space when the AI can explore just as well with a tiny fraction of the mass requirements?

I'd wager that it will be AI's using IRC from space, but IPv6 still won't have replaced IPv4. :)

> wager that it will be AI's using IRC from space, but IPv6 still won't have replaced IPv4. :)

You are indeed totally correct on all points!

(But IRC it will be :)