Okay, this is more and more drifting away from being remotely productive or helpful, but as I provided a working solution on top level, I feel free to tacke a few points that are, in my opinion, odd at best.
First let's tackle that mysterious group of < 20 year olds: > > Is there any such organization at all? > > Sure there is! Look at the tech startup scene, or the games industry. > But okay, let’s say “predominantly younger than 30” to make it an easier > task. But KDE is not a tech startup. As people correctly wrote, KDE has a very long history and contributors of all age. I'd rather be that than one of the many tech startups with a bunch of little to no experience but fancy new chat systems, to be honest. Do we really want and need to cater these mystical tweens so much? Are they the holy grail that saves KDE and worth alienating the people who are not this particular group? Even if that is the case, to answer your question: Yes, there are such companies, plenty even. Basically a lot of companies which are exactly not in the small bubble that is "tech start up", but other industries. Also companies that actually have to do business with other companies, where mail simply still is the standard. Then, on the subject of emojis, stickers or even the protocol used being so important: Let's see what others do. Let's take our main, most famous friendly competitor GNOME. They even run their very own IRC network still, and actively code new IRC applications. Mozilla? Own IRC network. Reddit, quite the place for young techies and startup? Created their own IRC network. Hardly turning off or away people, it seems. If we fail to attract fresh blood, then maybe the problem is not actually "we use IRC". But even if it would: to be honest, if someone decides what project they want to contribute due based on what chat protocol they use internally, I'm personally not sure if that is a well suited candidate due to rather odd priorities. Last but not least: if IRC really is so much of an issue, which I doubt: there are solutions readily available (Tg and Matrix bridge) or available in the future (Rocket bridge) which do resolve the problem whilst still maintaining compatibility for people who prefer what worked for 20 years and still works. So the reasons to continue with a replacement I can see are either "We want to get rid of the other one completely and enforce this one" or "we want it NOW", both of which I heavily have to disagree with for various reasons already mentioned. TL;DR: no. Kind regards, Christian