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

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#361

Post by capableweb » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:00 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.

> If not for the energy costs NFTs

NFTs themselves don't have any energy costs. Depending on what network you're using for buying/minting/trading NFTs, there might be energy cost associated with it, but not all NFTs are equal. NFTs based on Proof-of-Stake networks won't have the same energy cost as NFTs based on Proof-of-Work networks.

Unfortunately, it seems that most NFTs are based on the Ethereum platform, which is currently Proof-of-Work. Fortunately, Ethereum is moving to Proof-of-Stake slowly but surely.

But the point still stands, NFTs themselves have no energy costs, only the transactions on the network where they live have that.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#362

Post by ikt » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:01 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.

> 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/

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#363

Post by miracle2k » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:02 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #58

stickfigure wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scarcity is necessary but not sufficient. What sets BTC apart from NTFs is its fungibility. In theory, there are an infinite number of potential cryptocurrencies, sure. But everyone has already embraced bitcoin (and a small handful of others), and replacing that userbase is an incredibly tall hurdle. On the other hand, minting a new beanie-baby-NFT takes less effort than making an actual beanie baby.

There is no “scarcity” notion in NFT, each is by design unique.

That is actually correct and very smart. I can mint an infinite number of ERC20 tokens on Ethereum, and I can create an infinite number of Bitcoin clones. Bitcoin is only scarce in terms of its social support base being different than other coins; the same is true for any NFT. They simply have a supply of 1.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#364

Post by Ekaros » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:04 AM UTC

ngc248 wrote: post #138

As of now ... cryptocurrencies and the blockchain are just solutions searching for problems.

And that is likely long search. Traditional and more modern databases are pretty good. And features that blockchain brings, don't really change that too much or they might even be undesirable...

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#365

Post by miracle2k » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:05 AM UTC

ryan_lane wrote: post #276

neonbones wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think about NFT as an easy method of buying art from artists. There are many platforms for this with classical purchase mechanics, but as an artist myself, I love the idea of an auction-based platform for this era of digital art. Right now, there are no mechanism for extraordinary digital artists to make their art expensive like IRL art. The best thing is you can do commissions for people, but it's hard for…

But you don't own the art. You own the receipt for the purchase of a hash of the specific digital format the art is stored in. Note that there are definitely currently ways for digital artists to make expensive art, and that's in the form of commissions. If you really want to support an artist, find one you really like, and pay for a commission from them. You may also be able to pay more for forms of copyright (like…

Many artists do not want to do commissions. In fact, you could argue that people who want commissions are very selfish. Not only do they want to force artists to work on their thing, often driven by vanity, they even want to own the copyrights to the work!

NFT buyers are clearly more respectful of an artists craft: They buy the work the artist really wanted to create, and they respect the fact that they cannot be the owner of the work in a moral sense.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#366

Post by PeterisP » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:08 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…

> People have been speculating on collectibles for thousands of years.

Have they really? IMHO the whole concept of intentionally creating collectibles as a market started (and IMHO became possible) only after strict IP laws that could prevent anyone from making and distributing large quantities of items that should be rare by design.

My favorite example is the fictional collectible card game Gwent in Witcher 3, where the whole concept of rare/scarce cards is ridiculous in the absence of a single organization being able to enforce a monopoly on issuing Gwent cards; the actual expected result should be like ordinary cards, where everyone gets an ace of spades in their deck or chess where both players get a queen, no questions asked; for human-created marketable collectibles (as opposed to actual collections of butterflies or the like) the scarcity can only happen if artificially enforced.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#367

Post by miracle2k » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:09 AM UTC

Godel_unicode wrote: post #210

spoonjim wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s exactly what the scarcity value of a Vermeer is (which is 99% of the value). People can make infinite numbers of copies. NFTs just kind of lay that bare. It’s almost like the concept itself a performance art. “Can we cleave off the scarcity from the art/history/je ne sais quoi that fuels the hoarding of other scarce artifacts, and just sell that disembodied scarcity in a marketplace?”

You seem to have missed the fundamental truth that NFTs are not scarce. With the example of a Vermeer, you create one original thing, and then imitations of that thing. Minting multiple NFTs of the same thing is creating more originals, but of the same thing. One is not somehow "more original" than the others. This is a difficult concept for people to get their heads around because of the obvious but incorrect parall…

Have you heard of artists selling limited edition prints? The number of dot paintings Damien Hirst has his assistants produce is limited by what exactly?

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#368

Post by JofArnold » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:13 AM UTC

ryan_lane wrote: post #276

neonbones wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think about NFT as an easy method of buying art from artists. There are many platforms for this with classical purchase mechanics, but as an artist myself, I love the idea of an auction-based platform for this era of digital art. Right now, there are no mechanism for extraordinary digital artists to make their art expensive like IRL art. The best thing is you can do commissions for people, but it's hard for…

But you don't own the art. You own the receipt for the purchase of a hash of the specific digital format the art is stored in. Note that there are definitely currently ways for digital artists to make expensive art, and that's in the form of commissions. If you really want to support an artist, find one you really like, and pay for a commission from them. You may also be able to pay more for forms of copyright (like…

Not so; many (but not the majority) NFTs (like Board Ape Yacht Club) come with very liberal licenses that afford the owner of the NFT the ability to do a lot with them.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#369

Post by chinathrow » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:15 AM UTC

miracle2k wrote: post #351

chinathrow wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you own an NFT, you have the ability to write someone else’s address on a socially recognized ledger of ownership If that "socially recognized ledger of ownership" ceases to exist, then what?

Either there remains interest and social consensus around this ledger, in which case it can be rebooted on a different network, for example, or even by a centralized party; or maybe you are the only one with an interest in your NFT collection, in which case you can keep a copy of the ledger yourself.

I'm not convinced. Art galleries are easy to launch, even in 500 years time. What you're describing is hard to do.

Re: NFT projects are just MLMs for tech elites

#370

Post by noiwillnot » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:20 AM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #366

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…

> People have been speculating on collectibles for thousands of years. Have they really? IMHO the whole concept of intentionally creating collectibles as a market started (and IMHO became possible) only after strict IP laws that could prevent anyone from making and distributing large quantities of items that should be rare by design. My favorite example is the fictional collectible card game Gwent in Witcher 3, where…

This is one of my main gripes with MtG. It just feel like a scam, a 90s loot boxes situation. I do not want to contribute to the business model, even if the product is solid.

I will probably sell my collection and print some proxies.