The difference is that
* IRC is interoperable and easy to change servers, unlike apps with proprietary protocols. If Yahoo started doing horrible things with their email, then people who notice would switch to GMail or another host.
* IRC is interoperable and easy to change servers, unlike apps with proprietary protocols. If Yahoo started doing horrible things with their email, then people who notice would switch to GMail or another host.
For example the SerenityOS project used to advertise on their site that they had a channel on freenode but now they link a Discord instead.