Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's because there is no other meaningful way to "own" the thing the signature refers to, if you apply a concept of ownership as you would to a physical piece of art. Being in physical possession of the bytes to a JPEG is not what gives people the sense that they own this piece of art in the way they might own a painting, because the bytes are so cheaply copied. Owning the intellectual property behind a JPEG is an en…
Of course there are other ways to meaningfully own the digital artwork, you listed some in your response: You created the image. You own the copyright to the image (which has legal weight). You may restrict distribution or reproduction in those situations. These are all more meaningfully ownership than owning a digital receipt on the blockchain pointing to a url on a 3rd party site, which is more akin to buying a sta…
By my count you listed just one - owning the copyright. But as I said, while owning intellectual property is certainly meaningful (and can be valuable), it is not art collecting. There is a reason why there exists no art market where people are trading copyright claims.
As a collector, I don't want to be in the business of managing an intellectual property licensing enterprise. Yet, I want the artwork I own to become a well-known, celebrated cultural object; the artist also wants this, and thankfully - incentivised and empowered by still owning the copyright - will try to manage their career to achieve this.
We can all agree that crypto lends itself to rampant and unrestricted speculation / gambling, which attracts all kinds of people looking for a cash grab or get-rich scheme. Those speculative bubbles have been going on for years, and in all likelihood will continue. It's an issue that artists and collectors in this space are struggling to deal with; people don't like that new releases are sold out in minutes, because flippers and their bots think they can make a profit (this is not dissimilar to event ticketing issues).
However, artists who have experimented with blockchain 10 years ago, were not looking for marks to scam. While pics of lions will go up and down in price, and people who bought even respectable art at the height of the bubble will be looking at a loss in resale value, this market will not disappear; it provides a product that artists and collectors find useful.
I am not of the opinion that this will be as world-changing and all-encompassing as web3 proponents proclaim. Art collection is a niche in the real world, and it will be a slightly larger niche in the digital realm.