Dare has a post up on a cross-protocol, browser based IM client (Meebo), and the liklihood that they'll be acquired. That raised a question in my mind though - and it's not meant to be a nasty question - I'm honestly curious. What do MS, Yahoo, and AOL get out of their IM clients? I mostly use AIM, but that has to do with which network most of the people I deal with are on. I don't use AOL for anything else, and I haven't paid them for anything, ever. At one point I used MSN as a backup for dialup access, but I gave that up eons ago too, as I started traveling less, and hotels started having broadband access.

So honest question - what actual benefit are these guys seeing from their IM networks?