The problem with chatrooms is moderation. If you don't have moderators, chatrooms become full of spammers, which eventually drive users away. Yahoo Chatrooms had become so full of spam that I stopped going there.
Which is why every chat site I own has a moderation team 24/7, however Google seem to put chat sites at the top that have the most traffic and because of this, they stay there. These chat rooms cater for 70% of what pervs are looking for, people on webcams, so it ruins it for genuinely safe chat sites.