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

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#411

Post by meheleventyone » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:25 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #383

meheleventyone wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you don’t need NFTs to sell a digitally signed copy of a picture for say Bitcoin.

A cryptographically signed picture may tell you its from a certain artists, but it cannot enforce uniqueness. There are only two options - tokens, and ledgers. Despite the name, there is no such thing as a digital token, because digital objects cannot move, they only copy. So you need a ledger, so basically something like a blockchain, to keep track of copies. https://dergigi.com/2021/01/14/bitcoin-is-time/

But a ledger doesn’t prevent copies of the art or duplicate tokens it just enforces uniqueness of the singular token. So you’re still left with the uniqueness problem. Essentially trying to create scarcity where there is none is a spectacularly silly idea.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#412

Post by pmorici » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:28 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…

Baseball cards are exactly what they are and baseball cards were historically viewed as worthless until a craze in the 80’s that in turn caused over production and has made them a pretty poor investment.

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-baseball-card-market-colla...

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#413

Post by dtagames » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:29 AM UTC

ido wrote: post #323

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…

If not for the energy costs NFTs would be just like you describe above - a somewhat pointless but harmless hobby for enthusiasts (what good does speculating on baseball cards do in the world? What good does speculating on art do for that matter? As far as I can tell "little to none" for both of these). Unfortunately that's not the case.

There's no energy cost to spawning a million algorithmic penguins. They have no inherent cost or value.

The sunk costs of obtaining something rare or difficult to get (like titanium) is a factor only for the next person who desires titanium.

Since there is no cost to see or copy a jpg, there is no "extra value" added in an NFT. Not even energy costs. The end product still has zero value.

A simple corrolary is wine. Swill stored expensively doesn't acquire new use values from the storage. The expense of storage doesn't accumulate to the value of the NFT. Whereas the expense of obtaining real goods like metals is exactly what sets their value.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#414

Post by Grustaf » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:30 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #269

jcelerier wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I support NFTs much, but conceptually, how is that different than you buying a Marilyn Monroe from Andy Warhol and him printing the exact same Marilyn Monroe and selling it to someone else ? Hopefully in 2021 everyone would agree that the two are distinct artworks, even if the physical object is exactly the same to the human eye ; that's not what matters when buying art.

Having ownership of the physical print is a pretty big differentiator. I guess you could have always bought that same print from someone who created it illegally rather than Warhol himself, but that is where the vague "supporting the artist" reasoning comes in to play. Since NFTs don't provide that physical object, all that is left is the "supporting the artist" angle. If that is central to NFTs, why is the secondary…

Why would "supporting the artist" be relevant at all? Apart from NFTs whose smart contract gives the minter a share of resales, I have never heard anyone say that.

And definitely not in relation to the $90 profit.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#415

Post by Grustaf » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:32 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…

This touches upon the main issue with NFTs and tokens in general, that they always have to rely on a centralised authority to connect them to the real world, and except when it comes to derivatives on crypto assets, that real world connection is crucial.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#416

Post by Grustaf » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:35 AM UTC

user-the-name wrote: post #406

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If they weren't on the blockchain they would just be jpgs. Nobody would pay 100 k for a jpeg of an ape.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#417

Post by shawticus » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:36 AM UTC

NFTs are not baseball cards, they're not JPEGs, they're none of this.

They are emblems of buy-in to a community or idea. Think of it like the next generation of crowdfunding.

Most of what people are saying here is really ignorant of the reality on the ground to be honest, so it's hard to say anything other than-- ya'll really don't see it, because you haven't bothered to look.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#418

Post by shawticus » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:37 AM UTC

This post might as well have just been titled "Launch House is really out of touch"

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#419

Post by imtringued » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:37 AM UTC

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #48

stickfigure wrote: post #2

> The venn diagram of NFT haters are almost exact matches of Crypto haters Nonsense. I'm pro-crypto but think NFTs are absolutely idiotic. Scarcity is fundamental to any store of value. There are an infinite number of potential NFTs.

I’m also pro crypto, and this is a silly argument. Consider this statement: Scarcity is fundamental to any store of value. There are an infinite number of potential cryptocurrencies.

Yeah come on it should be pretty simple to explain why Bitcoin has value. It's because there is demand for it, for whatever reason. A "scarcity theory of value" feels like someone hamfisted the labor theory of value into the cryptocurrency space. No, even if labor is scarce and precious then making beanie babies for which there is basically zero demand (I assume) is still producing no value.

I'd say most of the value of Bitcoin comes from the ability to do payments that are not possible in the current legal system. Some of them may be illegal. Some of them might be genuinely useful like in El Salvador.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#420

Post by knorker » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 10:38 AM UTC

ikt wrote: post #362

ido wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If not for the energy costs NFTs would be just like you describe above - a somewhat pointless but harmless hobby for enthusiasts (what good does speculating on baseball cards do in the world? What good does speculating on art do for that matter? As far as I can tell "little to none" for both of these). Unfortunately that's not the case.

> If not for the energy costs Feel free to quote this and laugh at me but by this time next year I doubt this will be a topic The latest updates for anyone interested: https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/09/28/finalized-no-29/

What will come first though, POS or fusion power dominating power generation?

Every estimate so far has been wrong.