I am sure IRC was good for some people, but I can say for me personally it was a net negative and real life was so, so much better. I wish I never used IRC.
I also personally witnessed multiple friends who dropped out of college due to IRC addiction in the early 1990s.
I am curious if anyone else has a similar memory of IRC.
I met my wife on IRC and migrated to New Zealand as a result. Worked out pretty well for me/us, well over twenty years later.
Perhaps it was the experience of irc which led you to appreciate real life so much more when you finally did engage in it
Even though I really like irc because I can get answers really quickly from helpful people but it's a net negative I have felt if you linger on and listen to people conversing. IRC is good for short help needs but if you spend lot of time then it's net negative. I feel for the helpful ppl on various irc channels who are there to help out of their own goodness. They must be having a lot of net negative
QuakeNet in the 90s, I don't know what to say, thank you? It was high school for me, like, I got through high school, got into computers in high school, have great memories of that time: because of QuakeNet in the 90s. hackernews community is the closest things I've felt to that since then, but it's pretty hard to beat QuakenNet in the 90s.