Pretty sure they're replying to the post that directly contrasts Discord/Slack and IRC.

TFA mentions both, yes, but as a direct example of service/platform (Discord) vs protocol (IRC, XMPP, etc). The comment asks a question that kinda misses the point of TFA.

Discord could be considered to have "won" in that it's got a lot of (new) users and removes some of the limitations of IRC, but that's _because_ it is a service/platform, and comes with all the trade-offs being discussed in other threads here.

Or one could consider IRC to have "won" because as a protocol it simply can't have some of the restrictions possible with a centralized platform.

It's trade-offs all the way down, but protocols will always have fewer restrictions of the kind currently in the zeitgeist, especially decentralized protocols.