Isn’t the point of NFTs that it verifies ownership, not “you’re the only one that can access the content” (although there are indeed NFTs that can only allow the owner to decrypt the content)? It’s like video game cosmetics - many people can have the same skin, but people you want to impress or show off to can see that you own x, y, and z.
A lot of people think that, but I would consider that more of a requirement than the purpose.
The point of NFTs is to allow the original artist to share some of the financial rewards that the art dealers and collectors get each time they resell a piece of artwork in the future. The goal is to help restore some balance and fairness to the financial side of the art trade, particularly for new artists, who often can't earn a living wage on the original sales alone. And of course, being able to verify "ownership" of the "original" work is necessary to get the artist a piece of the pie whenever that NFT is sold.
Yes, you're right about access to the work... as an observer, anyone can enjoy looking at the art just the same as the person who owns the rights to it. Just like any other image on the internet, making a copy of it doesn't give you the rights to that image. So, I don't understand the point of this archive unless it's truly just to archive the data incase the blockchain goes down.