One solution to the Growing Number of IM's

So, I guess there are open source servers out there to create your own chat service. But why would someone ever want to create their own when there are so many for free?

So, as I write this I have an ancient ICQ account, a new ICQ account, an AOL IM account, a Yahoo account, an MSN account (that I never wanted, it's just part of having hotmail) and a Google Chat account. Why?

Is this not stupid?

And these consolidation programs, isn't that also a bit redundant.

"I have way to many applications running on my system!!"

"Here's the answer, another application..."

I guess there is no solution because anything new will only add to the mess and any program out there that tries to support ALL apps will fail.

Trillian for example, probably the most popular consolidation program for chat, IM, jabber, some-other-service-here, can't even put google in it's software.

uuuuuugh,
AK