On its 10th anniversary, Signal’s president wants to remind you that the world’s most secure communications platform is a nonprofit. It’s free. It doesn’t track you or serve you ads. It pays its engineers very well. And it’s a go-to app for hundreds of millions of people.
With new possibilities due to new tech user demands rise, too. People asked for features like group or video chats or coupled devices (not trivial with E2EE) and since good companies listen, they developed those and still do.
Also, I don’t think there’s a single IRC client still in use that hasn’t been updated since the 80s. I wouldn’t be surprised if your favorite client got an update in the last couple of months - and that despite it being a trivial protocol.