yes, but irc was really not easy to use for people who weren't the most tech literate, and the alternative those people used before discord was skype (bleeugh).

ideally there would be an easy-to-use, not-for-profit option but we don't really live in a system where projects like that can get enough development resources to solve the usability issues irc and matrix face.

perhaps even an update to the irc standard or something would have been cool.

so like yeah, discord sucks but it does enable more people to connect in an irc-like fashion than irc did. it's a mixed bag.