NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites • Hacker News Board

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#401

Post by danvayn » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:12 AM UTC

t_akosuke wrote: post #242

Ok, let's see if I'm following the discussion right. let's say you buy an NFT for using a GIF of the Techno Viking, from the Viking himself, and Reddit verifies it. Now you are the only person on Reddit that can have a Techno Viking GIF signature, yippee! Except I can make a new NFT of the same GIF and nothing in the NFT itself betrays that it wasn't issued by the real Techno Viking, so it's up to him, Reddit and you…

I didn't see this answer and wanted to submit it. So, in order for this NFT to have any authenticity, it has to be made under some sort of "technoviking" name right? Ultimately, this technoviking guy is probably reputed and if someone found his content through NFTs, would probably let him know. You can argue that the chain can't regulate itself, but as it stands it does -- just by virtue of there being one large platform (opensea). I'm not sure that Technoviking could easily get his content pulled from the chain, but it can be delisted entirely from opensea, and probably rigged up so future items of his would be caught and shadowbanned immediately.

Is this a solution that works long term? I'm not sure about that. It's a hard question to answer, but I'm glad someone's going for it. I would personally expect ycombinator to be more open to these kinds of ideas -- Programmatic solutions are something we can all get behind. It's a hard problem to solve but that's what drives a lot of our passion in this field, correct?

Basically yes, you'd be right. Someone has to call him out. But do you expect an automated system to handle that in a fair and ordered manner? We already have a terrible (user-wise) implementation of that -- DMCA. What's important is ascribing ownership for the long-term, even if we have to do it manually and surprise -- that's what NFTs (could) do.

I could be wrong but from what I've seen, I think DAOs could bridge that gap. These 'headless' communities create that manual self-regulation that is needed -- social verification fueled by some sort of financial incentive, driven through a very public system.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#402

Post by nftcomplainer » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

WA wrote: post #340

highfrequency wrote: post #311

There’s a lot of confusion here about why NFTs are valuable if the buyer doesn’t get to own the image copyright. This should not feel mysterious - NFTs are just like baseball cards. If you buy a Barry Bonds baseball card for $1,000, you don’t own the artistic rights to the image on the card. All you own is the card itself, which has negligible manufacturing cost. It would be trivial for any card company to produce a…

NFTs are not like baseball cards. NFTs are a JSON string on a proprietary entity that point to the image of a baseball card. The image can be viewed by everyone. The bragging rights of owning a JSON string depend heavily on whether or not the proprietary entity will become the dominant player in the I own a JSON string -world. This also has zero to do with blockchains. The proprietary entity could've used any databas…

I’ll be honest. I’ve only ever dabbled in crypto to buy things off a certain infamous marketplace a few years ago and have avoided them since.

Hearing NFTs described this way really just makes them sound like fairly transparent money laundering.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#403

Post by user-the-name » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

miracle2k wrote: post #354

jljljl wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Marilyn Monroes are still limited by the number that Warhol prints, and you have ownership of the print that you bought. Maybe it’s not as valuable as it would be if there was only 1 Monroe print, but you are paying for a physical object made by Warhol. If I understand correctly, an NFT is like if someone, not necessarily Warhol himself, sold you a note posted on a wall somewhere that said “You own Andy Warhol’s…

> If I understand correctly, an NFT is like if someone, not necessarily Warhol himself. No, the point is that the NFT is from the artist themselves.

It is not. Nothing about an NFT ensures it is from the artist, and not just from someone random scammer.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#404

Post by user-the-name » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:15 AM UTC

Thlom wrote: post #377

Igelau wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I understand correctly The funny thing about NFTs. The emperor has no clothes. Confusion is evidence of understanding -- there's that little substance. No Fscking Thing. > a note posted on a wall somewhere that said “You own Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe” It's basically a pointer. It's not hard to scrounge the sites that track the ETH blockchain, find where a NFT changed hands, and then find the URI for the full…

Does the GIF reside on the blockchain or is it hosted on whatever webserver? What if the webserver is shutdown? Now you "own" a pointer to nothing?

It is hosted on some random webserver or on IPFS. If either goes away, it's gone.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#405

Post by imtringued » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:16 AM UTC

Joeboy wrote: post #285

vintermann wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that may be nitpicking. The salient part is if it is a get rich quick scheme based on convincing people to join.

I know I'm a hopelessly naive hippy, but isn't there some option where we make our case by saying things that are true, rather than saying things that are untrue but alarming in the right direction? I feel like I personally would find online discourse much more helpful if we could do that.

Okay here we go. Call it a crypto scheme. Now someone else create the wikipedia article I did my part...

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#406

Post by user-the-name » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:16 AM UTC

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #205

root_axis wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's to stop someone from finding a random artist on instagram that produces amazing work and selling it as their own on a website like that?

If the community cares they'll try and find out people that do that and blacklist them. hicetnunc does that, it's the only one I could speak to. That's generally referred to as copy-minting. EDIT: here's the hicetnunc community write up for basic steps to minimize the change you buy a copy-mint: https://github.com/hicetnunc2000/hicetnunc/wiki/Beware-copym... !

So since it all works by the honour system anyway, why would you need a blockchain? You could just store everything in a regular database.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#407

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:17 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#408

Post by imtringued » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:20 AM UTC

consp wrote: post #239

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still doesn't make an MLM, MLM's have a specific meaning.

Ok, let's call it a pump and dump scheme then. The end result is the same: high profit for those in control (early adopters) and latecomers get the bill.

NFTs are most likely pump and dump. Established cryptocurrencies aren't following that pattern though. They get bigger and bigger until they are no longer sustainable. That's much closer to a pyramid scheme than pump and dump.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#409

Post by locallost » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:21 AM UTC

highfrequency wrote: post #311

There’s a lot of confusion here about why NFTs are valuable if the buyer doesn’t get to own the image copyright. This should not feel mysterious - NFTs are just like baseball cards. If you buy a Barry Bonds baseball card for $1,000, you don’t own the artistic rights to the image on the card. All you own is the card itself, which has negligible manufacturing cost. It would be trivial for any card company to produce a…

There are various vague touching points of NFTs and real world collectables like baseball cards, but they are not the same. Artificial scarcity is one of them, e.g. there is no reason why there couldn't be a billion baseball cards of the most expensive kind (which would make them stop being the most expensive). Somebody else could create fake ones, but they would have little value for the fact that they are not genuine, which can be verified. You can make the very same arguments for an NFT, including that they are genuine based on who issued them.

But a baseball card, or a Lego set have value on their own. Their collectable value stems from the fact that they are desired as such, and the scarcity makes the price of a certain type go up. Somebody might buy them just to show off or speculate, but another might be a huge Lego nerd and buy the rarest set just to feel joy by looking at it. But an NFT has no value beyond the scarcity. Nobody feels human joy by looking at an NFT beyond being able to show off that they are able to basically burn money in the "i am rich" app type of way. Thus it can only remain a toy for the rich. A van Gogh painting is most likely just a speculation and a show off object, but I might buy a painting from a local artist for $200 because I like it, and to put it on my wall so it makes me happy because it reminds of something nice. I will not buy a $200 NFT just to say I have one too.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#410

Post by denton-scratch » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

SrslyJosh wrote: post #3

This would have been more interesting if the author had traced where all the money being plowed into NFTs is coming from. I suspect that most of it does not come from outside of the current ETH (or whatever) ecosystem. I'd bet that most of the volume comes from people who are either treating it as play money, or trying to pump the NFT scam for their own benefit (real or imagined).

> ETH (or whatever) ecosystem

"Ecosystem" is a word that I believe sprung to life in the 70s, referring to the entire collection of organisms inhabiting a 'place', along with the weather conditions etc. in that place. The term was coined because without it, you need (or rather, I needed) 16 words to express it.

So it bothers me when people use the term to refer to collections of stuff that's never been alive: the Java ecosystem, the cryptocurrency ecosystem. These are not "ecosystems" - they're called "systems".