[rz2k]

I think we are talking about overhearing communication between aliens speaking the same "language", where compression makes even more sense over a difficult channel. Consider data transmitted from spacecraft in our own solar system. The signal is quiet, and the bitrate is very slow. They could send uncompressed data if it is were easier to receive, but instead they recognize the bitrate as a physical constraint and optimize for information per bit. Uncompressed data could provide an advantage in terms of redundancies making errors more apparent and often recoverable, but error correction algorithms are both more robust and more efficient.

The point is that compressed transmission actually is simpler, and a formalized error correction scheme is much more reliable than relying on redundancies that arise by chance.

What about the parent comment belies anything factual? There is no data on alien transmissions, and the efficiency of compression and formalized redundancies just is, as a result of the math, not as a finding of collected data, even if real world data confirms what is mathematically understood.