The Fall of Freenode Soon Turns 3, NDAs Will Expire and the Fall Continues (About 20% Decrease This Month)
As the chart superimposed on the side shows (sourced from here), Freenode had a tough month and former Freenode staff will soon be able to speak about what happened in April/May/June of 2021. This resulted in the near deprecation of Freenode, due primarily to the rise of Libera.Chat (former Freenode staff flocked there) and OFTC. Between them they have about 65,000 online users (not the same as people due to bots, overlap across networks, Matrix bridge and so on) compared to an average of "6114 users" according to netsplit.de. At this very moment:
* There are 18 users and 6240 invisible on 10 servers * 9 :operator(s) online * 7 :unknown connections * 10453 :channels formed * I have 1791 clients and 1 servers * Current local users: 1791 Max: 1890 * Current global users: 6258 Max: 7589
One might go by raw number of users and say Freenode is "10 times smaller" than OFTC plus Libera.Chat (combined) but that's the wrong yardstick to go by.
The bottom line is, OFTC and Libera.Chat are keeping steady, unlike Freenode. IRC will turn 36 this summer. It is about a year older than the Web.
With NDA dates about to be reached (expiry) there will be interesting stories to hear and tell. █