I used it a lot, not through Google’s gchat stuff, I ran my own XMPP server. It worked really well, I used the OTR encryption plugin in pidgeon. My work also used to use xmpp for internal chat within the company, however they switched to matrix like 5-6 years ago. Something I’ve since done personally too.
I like XMPP a lot, it worked well, including it being federated.
I’ve found this too. Generally if I’m okay waiting for the answer I’ll try and find the relevant lemmy community and ask that question there instead of clicking the reddit links. There are times though I simply need the answer and so of course I do click the reddit link.
Even so, if we all try and ask the questions we have here Lemmy will eventually be the place you find this information