[rumblecat]

The case for NFTs rests on a virtuous cycle between artists and buyers. On the artist side, there are temporary benefits, such as increased prices and pandemic-safe fundraising. But the killer feature is programmability - for example, it is possible to program the NFT such that the artist takes a chunk out of every resale on the secondary market. This means that as long as there are buyers, there will be artists issuing their work as NFTs.

The buy side is more complicated, because people buy art for different reasons. But there are benefits such as digitization making money laundering more convenient. The main issue is legitimacy concerns, but so long as artists can benefit from NFTs, they are incentivized to express the legitimacy of the NFT. In the equation of who gets to decide legitimacy, I would say the artist has the most sway.

Of course, it's entirely possible that NFTs will fail. First off, it could fail if the issuing blockchain failed or had a contentious fork. Secondly, it's possible that the primary blockchain or issuer for NFTs could change, which could reduce the value of "obsolete" NFTs. There is also regulatory risk. Finally, there is the possibility that people who abuse NFT system, such as repeatedly reissuing art or issuing pirated art, could poison the well. But that's entirely different from saying NFTs are doomed to fail and inherently worthless.

[LocalH]

> it is possible to program the NFT such that the artist takes a chunk out of every resale on the secondary market

I fail to see why this is desirable. What right does an artist (or indeed, anyone who produces anything) have to any portion of resales?

[detaro]

The right they contractually set with the buyer. Secondary market prices exploding compared to first sale prices isn't exactly uncommon in the art world, so why artists would be interested in this is fairly obvious. (To a degree it can also help keep first sale prices lower, it somewhat discourages quick speculation resales (which many in the art world think is a good thing), and lets the artist participate in later value growth of their work which given that the value is due to their work many people would say is fair, and thus they agree to such contracts)

[AVTizzle]

> it is possible to program the NFT such that the artist takes a chunk out of every resale on the secondary market

I hear this and like the notion, but I'm curious - how does the smart contract know what the sale price was?

[rumblecat]

Currently it's done through the marketplace platform, so actually commissions don't track when you sell through other platforms. EIP-2981 aims to standardize this.

Depending on your view of platforms, this could be less than ideal. It should also be possible to modify the transfer function in the EIP-721 contract to be a swap, but this would require a new standard. In any case, it could be gotten around by an escrowed transfer with swap amount being set to 0. I don't think there is a way to prevent this.

[qqii]

The sale is done in via smart contract, a buyer essentially sends tokens (commonly Ethereum) to the smart contact. Under commissioned scheme the smart contact will create transactions that split the Ethereum between the relevant parties (commonly buyer, platform, seller).