It depends. There's a lot of people on/around IRC who really like it (see libera and all the other networks), and yeah there definitely are people spinning up new smaller networks. Especially with things like https://sr.ht/~emersion/gamja/ and self-hosted https://kiwiirc.com/ , as well as really polished client experiences like irccloud, it's easier to convince people to join in.
Right now I'm working with a dev from libera on a client that aims to replicate a lot of things experience-wise from newer chat services. Hoping that with that, smaller self-contained servers can become more of a norm~ But for now, your best bets for finding activity are probably Libera and a couple of the other larger networks.
Right now I'm working with a dev from libera on a client that aims to replicate a lot of things experience-wise from newer chat services. Hoping that with that, smaller self-contained servers can become more of a norm~ But for now, your best bets for finding activity are probably Libera and a couple of the other larger networks.