It only shows the link speed. Not the actual bandwidth or responsiveness in the network.
And even at that, it's only your mac's transmitting (not receiving) link speed.
You are missing ~70% of the tools functionality.
Did anyone claim it to be equivalent? I said it was more useful. Just a tip.
How is showing your link speed more useful than showing your actual speed? The link speed does not show anything useful, besides that you might be connected to a router from the 90s.
That menu offers more that you know, apparently. But no one is forcing you to use it. You are welcome to use either :)
Instead of repeatedly claiming it is more useful, you might want to go into detail about what it offers and how it is useful. I don't have a Mac around, but according to the other commenters it doesn't seem to display much more than the link speed, which doesn't sound too useful to me either.
It's okay to be wrong.
networkQuality measures performance data across the Internet.
Alt/option + WiFi symbol shows information about your local WiFi connection.
That only gives information about the link between your computer and the wifi access point you're connected to.
This conversation is about what's happening upstream of that.