I’d argue tone is often useful. But you’re right - as someone who habitually employs subtle sarcasm I’ve found a large portion of the population are not really in tune to that subtlety. For me it’s a good quick differentiator to identify strangers I might actually get along with. That’s an aside though… in our case the meaning & intent might be opaque, but the result is the same. In my case, I either make someone laugh, or weird them out.