Well, we don't have to imagine!

It might be, but I am not aware. Any reference?

Whatsapp blocked telegram.me links at some point (I think when it was acquired by facebook, inciting an other mass exodus)

How? WhatsApp messages are e2ee. Via the preview pings maybe?

If I remember, telegram.me links would not be identified as URLs requiring manual copy-paste. They didn't have link previews back then.

The messages are E2EE only in transit. They can always tweak clients for things like this.

For example, try referencing another platform or payment system in an iOS app ;)

Definitely can’t reference other places to buy an item from your eBay or Amazon posting.

Hell Amazon won’t even let you sell at a lower price elsewhere, and they have web scraping automation setup to catch you and hide your listings if you do…

I meant that Freenode is now proprietary as well, as the sibling comment mentions, yep!

Freenode is now a proprietary platform operated by Lee.

So basically post a note into every channel with the recommendation to move over to Libera.chat?

Freenode would end up with a clean server, what a relaxed way to start into a new future.

A non-strawman version would be, basically let individual communities and their leaders decide for themselves what their future free-as-in-freedom comms platform is, without unsolicited technical interference from their current comms platform.

Imagine if your e-mail provider learned you were considering switching to another provider, and without warning, locked you out of your e-mail account, and then used it to advertise a new e-mail account, created by them, in your name, that you have no control over, to all your acquaintances, saying that you aren't actually switching providers, and the new e-mail account is the real one.

These are the actions of a sociopath.