11–20 of 48 posts
I’m personally at the stage where it seems like such obvious silliness that I feel like I must be missing something, and so I avoid expressing this opinion anywhere that I might be held accountable for it at some point in the future. But I still suspect that I’m right, naturally. Definitely interested to hear arguments to the contrary though.
I also remember some startups attempting to assign music licensing using possession of some secret connected to a public ledger.
I had a family member refer a colleague who taught continuing education courses for insurance agents ask for information so he could speak to the potential future of insurance contracts being done on-chain.
These are all examples from years ago, and included some form of the key characteristics of NFTs as described in the article: non-interoperable, indivisible, indestructible, verifiable.
NFTSs seem put an emphasis on the items they secure being purely digital.
I don't see NFTs as a new idea but possibly consolidation of pre-existing ideas into winning standards, (ERC-721 and ERC-1155 potentially), and perhaps generalized buzz around bitcoin and crypto.
Consolidation to a standard, endorsement from perceived sources of authority and a way for new people to still "get rich" in crypto might elevate this to something that goes the distance.
But I'd expect a lot of folks to be burned in the meantime, "investing" stimulus money on things that go to zero.
Anecdotally, when I was evaluating Clubhouse, one of the major detractors of the service was how much emphasis the communities put on scammy get-rich in real estate or other seedy business ideas. There were a lot of groups on NFTs and that was a few weeks ago.
I'm most interested in how digital assets created on the fly on someone's phone can be quickly secured to allow fluidity in the transfer of rights.
People are capturing more and more important events first hand. However validating authenticity, ownership and authority to license that content seems kinda messy right now.
I suspect NFTs could play a role in standardizing assertion of rights over content, it doesn't have to be deliberately created but rather by chance.
A more fluid market for opportunity-based "stringer" content is teased at in Neil Stephenson's "gargoyles" of Snow Crash.
I don't know if NFTs will be the vehicle for this but something like them will be, and whatever that system is will probably consume these more shiny "assets" appearing so far.
Full disclosure: I do sell art as NFTs on one of the curated platforms, and I do get to benefit from the current "mania", but I'm not one of the big name artists, to me the whole NFT thing as it pertains to art is more like patreon. It's a way for folks to support artists they like and to have a (non physical) piece that they can show for it at the end of the day.
NFTs may have real applications in enabling markets for intellectual property like copyrights, patents, and what not. For example, it would be possible to automatically stream money to one or many NFT copyright holders from a decentralized Spotify. It is also possible to tie NFT in smart contracts, so that the owner is able to call special functions or change the state in the contract. For example, if an ad spot on a website is controlled by a NFT, the NFT owner would be able to change the ad.
Mania for now but long term it will bring scarcity to the digital realm something that's important to fully develop the digital economy. Right now digital has been very profitable for a relatively few since it takes lots of money to develop a product but scarcity will let many more people make a living. A simple example are artists. Artists have been mostly locked out of making a good living with their digital works…
Even in the traditional sales model, I would think the typical PED for digital goods means that selling multiple copies provides more revenue than selling one copy for a higher price. Most things aren't Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
I’m personally at the stage where it seems like such obvious silliness that I feel like I must be missing something, and so I avoid expressing this opinion anywhere that I might be held accountable for it at some point in the future. But I still suspect that I’m right, naturally. Definitely interested to hear arguments to the contrary though.
One possibility that occurs is: for decentralized infrastructure, where no organization can attest to the identity of an original author, then it might make sense for that author to 'claim' their content when they upload it (at which time, for most authors, it would have zero value).
That could be a way for authors to retain and claim value for their work over time, while also making a public copyright claim.
That's all conjecture on my part; I don't really understand the hype yet, either - or whether it will last.
It's not going to go away. This camp of control & authority & power will find enough adherents to make that which is without value have value. They will recruit enough suckers to buy in, spread this new religion. Society will think it cares about this dark, against-the-point menace. We will almost certainly decide these things have value, and fight & squabble & "invest" in these things. Alas. L. Ron Hubbard created a religion based on aliens & purity, & these folks are asking for faith in ownership & scarcity.
We will have to keep hearing about these dark disciples for decades.
I expect NFTs to be a trend. It's much easier to fetishize a physical commodity than a digital one. What you're paying for is the imagined blessing imbued by the creator and access to the content (which can be leaked).
If you understand how NFTs work and appreciate the art, you might imbue the NFT with the magic blessing of its creator, and then translate the feeling over to the rendering. There's a gap here.
That magic is going to fade quickly because any rendering of the content (easily leaked, copied) is hardly related to the fact that there's only one of the NFT. Let alone if you're not constantly displaying it to remind yourself.
I could see NFTs as a value store / speculative investment, as a more honest version of the upper-crust art market. But what you're paying for is essentially feelings and leaky exclusion of the content.
Mania for now but long term it will bring scarcity to the digital realm something that's important to fully develop the digital economy. Right now digital has been very profitable for a relatively few since it takes lots of money to develop a product but scarcity will let many more people make a living. A simple example are artists. Artists have been mostly locked out of making a good living with their digital works…
This doesn't really make any sense. Right now I can write one piece of software and sell it thousands of times. The return on investment (time and energy) is absolutely huge.
Introducing scarcity only hurts my bottom line and customers who can't get what I'm selling.
NFTs seem like complete nonsense. But I thought the same about BitCoin (and honestly still do) but we know how that turned out.
Mania for now but long term it will bring scarcity to the digital realm something that's important to fully develop the digital economy. Right now digital has been very profitable for a relatively few since it takes lots of money to develop a product but scarcity will let many more people make a living. A simple example are artists. Artists have been mostly locked out of making a good living with their digital works…
I'm not sure I get it. If the art is digital, then copies can be identical to the original (apart from the NFT), no? So why would this model succeed over, say, a Patreon-like model where many people get access to the product? Even in the traditional sales model, I would think the typical PED for digital goods means that selling multiple copies provides more revenue than selling one copy for a higher price. Most thing…