I guess it depends on what article and source you read... Torrents may be making an explosion. but it will die down.. Same as a few years ago with the Http, ftp and fxp for downloading.. Huge explostion of that. What ended up happening.. Went back to the IRC. IRC will always be there.
Only problem with torrents.. You download a file, execute it then the download starts.. to many negotiations happening there. That how my cuz got a letter from our ISP to stop downloading.
Either way I still favor IRC.