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Xkcd: Universe Price Tiers (xkcd.com)
100 points by tambourine_man on Sept 2, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 31 comments



In the beginning, there was Lite.

But the Lite was concentrated and there was darkness everywhere else, so God said, let us set the Lite free so that it might roam the universe. And so, the Lite became Standard.

God felt good, because now he could see what he was doing. With all the Lite everywhere, he quickly saw that he was alone and that made him very very sad.

So God ruminated for millions and millions and trillions of years how to solve his loneliness. Then, one day (Lite came in cycles), a lightbulb went off and he realized he need to be Pro life. So he increased the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin and he changed the cosmic speed limit. This allowed him to sow seeds across the vast expanse and with the Lite, there were crops everywhere with life blooming on billions of worlds.

This made him happy.

But over time God realized the meaning of life, and decided to retreat. No more upgrades to the universe, no presence. Except for the ads.


You can make a religion out of this.



The correct heading for the "Universe Pro" tier is Enterprise, and it's price is "Contact us for a Quote".


Isn't "Enterprise" the vehicle you get in the Pro tier?


Self-hosted.


I tried hosting a universe on-prem once. Trust me, you don't want to deal with that kind of paradox if you can avoid it.


Randall missed a joke there where the Lite universe doesn't come with a full set of fundamental forces:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weakless_universe

Still gave me a good laugh though.


First time I've ever actually laughed at an XKCD.


Knowing the meaning of life sounds nice, but I don't want another subscription. I'll wait til it's cracked and I can torrent it.


In this thread: complaints of how the Universe used be available to purchase as a perpetual license, and now the option is buried in some page only linked from a KB article.


I'm rather disappointed by the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. I expected the pro level to allow an unlimited number. That said, it has some other unexpected perks I'm quite excited about.


The table omits the fine print that says that you just get bigger pins with the more expensive plans.


Also the sound of the falling tree should be at least 7:1 Surround for the Pro tier


Relevant Tom Scott video: https://youtu.be/IFe9wiDfb0E Welcome to Life.


Meaning of life for US$ 50/month is a steal. Unless we need to inflation-adjust 14 billion years.


What they don't tell you is that the second you stop paying you lose all meaning.


The meaning is in the paying


This just links to the front page of the site, here is the permanent link: https://xkcd.com/2666


Good catch, thanks


I mean $49.99 per month for 0 ads is a steal.


It just means there's no third party ads, they still advertise in-universe products.


He could have done something like

Natural Laws: [Impossibly complex], [complex, but comprehensible], [compresses into a single neat equation]


Where can I upgrade?


Unfortunately, if you have to ask, you don't qualify.


> Where can I upgrade?

Given our longtime subscription to Universe Standard®, Universe Pro® probably busts our budget.


> In Universe Pro®™ the laws of physics remain unchanged under time reversal, to maintain backward compatibility.


When can we have the open-source version?


Title text for them smartphone users: In Universe Pro®™ the laws of physics remain unchanged under time reversal, to maintain backward compatibility.

xkcd explained link: https://explainxkcd.com/2666


On Firefox for Android, you can just press-and-hold the image to see the alt-text, or https://m.xkcd.com has "alt-text" that you can tap on to toggle it.


Same behavior on iOS Safari




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