I made several good friends on IRC across nations. The trust and friendships then, between strangers who had never met, was a lot stronger than many friends I met in person. Some I met in person via IRC eventually, and still keep in touch with, 20+ years later. IRC was (still is) a virtual world within itself, with social hierarchies, personal reputations, economics etc.
Yahoo chat / messenger was great to meet women back in the day.
I never liked ICQ but it was quite popular for a good while.
Then the social media platforms started popping up and things changed forever.