I don't get this, it is working. It's largely replaced IRC in open source spaces. It's not going to penetrate the mainstream but it's fine for what it is and people do use it all the time.
A decade ago Moxie Marlinspike argued[1] that to develop Signal more quickly, he and his team could not be distracted by federation. At the time I wasn't sure what to think, but it does seem that the effort level of using the integrated approach of client/server/protocol may just logistically be easier.
That's is what I mean by not working. Those are things are are either bugs, or as in the falsely banned issue, a protocol design issue that should have been thought through in the first place