Earlier quoted context omitted.
My interest in web3 + art is from finding new livable income sources for artists generally. Less about big money speculation, more about getting more artists supported such that they don’t need a day job or purely commercial art pursuits (as opposed to “fine art”). I understand the current state of crypto isn’t near offering this outside of hyped speculative investments I’m also not interested in ideas on a shelf tha…
This is a solved problem: you pay them for their work, which is how artists have made money since time immemorial. The degree to which artists can make a living off their art is a function of demand and discoverability, not whether they have a payment system (they do need this, but they already have them). I'd be curious to know what fraction of NFT enthusiasts had previously commissioned a piece of art, and of those…
Maintaining records for art transactions, and thus enacting a fee structure that would benefit the artist when art is traded, traditionally meant introducing a middleman - and the associated overheads are why "fine arts" are known as a gatekept world and commissions have become the default for digital art. A sneer like "yeah well did you commission art before NFTs" is tautological. Commissions are the business model because they're available with minimal financial technology, not because they're ideal for society. The result you want is "more art is produced and more artists can afford to produce at a high level". But not everyone is interested in commissioning a large quantity of art of their furry OC getting porked. And likewise, people have trouble commissioning an artist to work freely without adding some kind of externalized upside like "build my own personal brand". There's a saturation point to that business model in and of itself.
It's only been relatively recently that artists also started to be able to access intellectual property law as a business model, but running an IP business involves a perpetual defense of property through legal enforcements, since we are in the age of mechanical reproduction. So it also has barriers to entry and ongoing overheads. I don't hear anyone saying that game developers should all work on commission, though.
The proposition of NFT art is just a revision of the gallery system - make intellectual work an asset, but on a much broader scale. The fee structure is automated, and the art itself is open to viewing and therefore doesn't need the same degree of IP enforcement as a paywall model; the only provenance question is the initial one of whether you actually minted your own work. And naturally, among the first people to have jumped on this are charlatans who have tested that exact question of initial provenance.
But I can say, having closely observed and participated a little, that NFT art on the whole is not uniquely bad or good, it's still "just" an art market, just one geared towards the artist who is interested in making their brand a speculative investment. And that is another way to get art made.