Twenty five years ago, this protocol had a devoted and zealous community that was convinced it was the future of online communication.
Spoiler alert, we were wrong. It never reached a critical mass of users and no one remembers it. 
Discussion
When I think of hotline
Return of the Jedi speeder chase scene
What made it great back then?
Seriously? I’ve been trying to learn the history of the internet but it’s been a struggle. Hugs 🫂
As always, what made it great was the comminity. Ultimately, it was just a shiny new UI for IRC, combined with easy file sharing in a pre-napster era.
There were “trackers” to find servers you could connect to. Some were general, some had themes. Very Mac-centric at first, though there were Windows clients later on.
Right on. Thanks. 🙏