The problem with you techbros is you can’t imagine anything at smaller scales. But what you just said… Jabber is here for 25 years. That means it is good enough for tons of people. Not everybody needs a shiney new toy and if free software doesn’t scale, then who cares. It can and will still work for those of us willing to share the burden and for those that can’t, each one of me can accommodate at least a few such users and those that just won’t… Fuck em. We don’t have to capture every use case to be of value. I use jabber. I have plans to self host it. It works and has done so for 25 years. Furthermore AIM captured everything a chat needs to do, why do we keep reinventing this wheel when there are much more interesting problems that need to be solved.
To be honest, this always happens. So what? Most people want their corporate social media. My parents will never stop using Facebook no matter how bad it gets. I think focusing on metrics like what most people are doing is just a race to the bottom. If we keep building what we want to exist in the world and stop focusing on which platform does the best numbers, I think we will find its quality that counts, not quantity.