xkcd.WTF!?

Explanation ➲

This comic compares different remote communication services, including the relatively well-known Twitter, Discord, Mastodon, Facebook (FB), Slack, Signal, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), Tumblr, Reddit, and SMS mobile telephone text messages. It also includes the less well-known Cybiko® wireless handheld computer for teens. For each of these, it purports to indicate which of various features they support. The comic illustrates how feature comparison charts and infographics can be abused by sellers who are trying to make their products look better than they really are, compared to their competitors. The comic may have been inspired by the recent surge in users looking for an alternative to Twitter, due to its purchase by Elon Musk, and the subsequent mass firings and resignation of its staff.

The Cybiko was a handheld computer designed for teens and released in 2000, which featured its own two-way radio text messaging capabilities along with built-in games and a music player. Additional information about it is available at the Dead Media Archive, as the device has not been manufactured since 2003. The chart suggests that the Cybiko has an advantage over all of the other listed communication services, as it is capable of all eight of the table's listed features, with none of the others being close.

The features compared are direct messaging, group chats, file transfer, built-in games, instances of the software run by individual users instead of the corporation producing it, lack of a central server requirement, mesh networking, and wireless message delivery without an active internet connection.

Mesh networking is a form of connectivity that reduces or removes the need for a centralized server or predefined gateways to a communications 'backbone'. Nodes communicate directly with any nodes that happen to be contactable, and from there may connect through to whatever nodes are in mutual contact, or to be found further afield, either in real-time or asynchronously. The Cybiko has this ability, as well as wireless message delivery because it communicates directly to other devices via radio, hence the ability to operate without any internet connectivity at all. There are several ongoing projects for distributed social networking, but all of these additionally require a hardware layer to provide signalling via their respective protocols. The Cybiko provides such via its decentralized radio capabilities.

The comic does not mention the downsides of the Cybiko, that being purchasing one, and finding friends who own one, can be its own challenge, as it was discontinued nearly 20 years ago. Additionally, the comparison can be considered apples to oranges, since Cybiko is a device rather than a service; a fairer comparison would be to a modern smartphone, which can provide most of these features via multiple apps, including ones written especially for such rival services. Even ignoring the above, some of the Cybiko's "advantages" come with their own drawbacks: while not requiring a central server nor the Internet, for example, is touted as a plus, the Cybiko instead relies on having other devices in proximity to relay messages, meaning that unless the person you are sending to is nearby, it will not function. This is not an issue on any of the other options.

This comic contains several errors. Mastodon doesn't support file transfer. Discord does not provide for user-run instances itself, only user-moderated and administrated instances. (There are two third party Discord server implementations, but it is unclear whether those could be counted as run by users.) Slack does not provide for user-run instances itself. Reddit does not provide for user-run instances at all, only user moderation and administration. IRC does require at least one central server,[1] and relegates file transfer support to client extensions. Signal is heavily used in user-run instances via a diverse ecosystem of code forks; many of these don't require a central server, a couple use mesh networking. Reddit occasionally does have built-in games. Finally, SMS has a form of group chats, (Tumblr used to have a form of group chat, but it was removed in September of 2021).

The comic has been updated twice to fix some of these errors. The first version suggested Mastodon did not support user-run instances and required a central server, and that Reddit supported file transfer. This was changed once shortly after publication to add a check mark under "Mastodon" for "User-Run Instances". A second change was made some time later to check "Doesn't Require Central Server" for Mastodon and uncheck "File Transfer" for Reddit.

The title text refers to the translucent plastic covers that were popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s.