[miracle2k]

Any number of artworks are being sold which allow for reproducibility, say photographs. Expensive limited edition prints are a thing. In most of those cases the particular physical manifestation you acquire is entirely a construct. Even for an original painting, the fact that you desire that particular manifestation (over say an improved one which the original artist may now be able to do) is a construct. If a painting needs restoration, you may find that some elements are no longer original; this will not diminish its value. If over the years we replace all the parts of the Mona Lisa, it will still be the Mona Lisa (see also: the Ship of Theseus).

[stickfigure]

> Expensive limited edition prints are a thing

...and if the artist suddenly flooded the market with millions of identical prints, the value would plummet.

[nwienert]

Even the photos that sell are scarcer than digital photos - the only people who could reproduce it are the original artist, or an owner of the photo who made a perfect scan, and the owners of the photo likely aren’t going to distribute scans of their own art.

[miracle2k]

But that is entirely artificial scarcity. The fact is that they could be produced perfectly; the physical prints need physical security, because if copies were allowed to be made, it would be difficult to know who owns the original.

If the provenance of the real item could be guaranteed, the fact that you have a really good copy wouldn't matter; people would still pay to own the original.

That's exactly what an NFT is; digital security for a digital print. People who buy NFTs don't care that someone else has a copy, they value the artificial scarcity provided by the NFT.

Look, the fact is that if you like a Picasso, you can have a perfect copy made, and you won't be able to tell the difference between the two. In fact, in a blind test, you may end up liking the copy more. The fact that you value the original more because Picasso touched it is totally, absolutely in your head. Empirically, there is no reason why this should make a difference to you.

And then you have a digital token that Picasso personally signed with his private key.

There are a lot of examples at the intersection of this. If you buy a Damien Hirst, the artist may well never have touched the piece - these are being produced by staff. Sol LeWitt's Wall Paintings exist as instructions that different artists re-execute over an over again.

In all these cases, enjoyment of the art is available to everyone; you can have a really good copy. It is totally disconnected with what people value when they pay large sums of money, which is entirely artificial.

[nwienert]

It's not analogous, still. First of all, copies of photos are worth less than paintings for a reason. So already we see the price scales down based on how reproducible things are. NFT's therefore should never be close to your average gallery selling a photo reproduction, as they are infinitely copyable for free.

A high quality photo print and frame costs quite a bit of money. That's maybe a couple thousand dollars. And then the artist hangs them in a nice gallery, with sales people. That costs more too. And the final price isn't something like 100x the cost, it's maybe 10x if lucky, often 2-3x.

And again, you can't really reproduce it easily. If I found some really high quality scanning store, I could do a decent job. But it would cost me a lot of money, and the signature on the print wouldn't look or feel real.

So again, big difference, and already we have to admit paintings > prints > digital images.

You absolutely cannot have a perfect copy of a Picasso. Sorry, that's a meme that's not real. You can carbon date the paint. There are ridiculous complexity in his layering techniques. Even the specific paints he used were from his era, and hard to find. It's physically provable to show a Picasso is a real one that came from his hands. Not possible with an NFT as there literally is no original. You can prove the coin is the coin he made, but that's simply not analogous.

[miracle2k]

> You absolutely cannot have a perfect copy of a Picasso. Sorry, that's a meme that's not real.

Yes, the point I am making though is that if you cannot see the differences with the naked eye, or if in fact you prefer the copy if given a test, then why do you value all that stuff? Enjoy the much cheaper copy.

It is true there are unique properties that a physical original features - it is just that the value assigned to them is arbitrary, and there does not seem to be an obviously good reason to pay a lot of money for it. People do it because of what is essentially a collective hallucination centered around the idea of scarcity.

Now if there were a way to copy a Picasso perfectly, I posit that people would still assign an arbitrarily high value to the original. I mean, you can see that being the case with diamonds.

Obviously, there is something about a physical object that a digital image will never be able to reproduce. That's why people still enjoy real books, right? So I wouldn't be surprised if a real painting would carry a certain premium over an NFT. But the idea that people pay for an NFT, signed by Damien Hirst's own private wallet? I see no fundamental difference between valuing that and valuing the entirely imaginary benefit of Damien Hirst having once stood in the presence of that physical object you bought.

[nwienert]

Because in one case I have an original Picasso, in the other all I have is a hash in a blockchain somewhere. I don't get how people don't see the difference.

An original Picasso... vs a hash number.

Would I rather have the basketball that Lebron dunked in a game or some random basketball that Lebron issued an NFT for? They are for all intents and purposes identical. Why do people care?

It's likely because authenticity matters, hard work begetting achievement matters, real world deeds, real world objects matter. Matter matters. It's just how humans work, maybe because we are matter..

Diamonds are a great example. They are in fact scarce, which drives value, and the reason artificial diamonds don't retain value is because they are less scarce. Now work backwards.

[miracle2k]

> An original Picasso... vs a hash number.

I agreed that physical objects have unique properties that digital objects cannot match. But presumably we can appreciate digital artworks nonetheless?

It is also true that the nature of the digital object means that ownership of the NFT is somewhat disconnected from whether a .jpg is physically in your computers memory at any given time.

But the choice is not between an original Picasso and a random hash number, but rather:

- An original Picasso painting vs an equally enjoyable copy. - An NFT of Picasso's digital illustration vs an equally enjoyable copy.

Are you able to experience that same intangible connection with history by looking at a blockchain entry, as you might be standing in front of an old painting? Maybe not. But you may experience a version of it, in the same as you might by looking at the first websites.

> Would I rather have the basketball that Lebron dunked in a game or some random basketball that Lebron issued an NFT for?

Sure. What about a unique NFT of a sword that was used to win in a watershed eSports event? Note that this would be a digital object that does not merely represent the sword, but it is the sword, i.e. I can now use it in the game. I think people would value that through largely the same mental mechanism as the basketball.

[mrgordon]

> Diamonds are a great example. They are in fact scarce, which drives value, and the reason artificial diamonds don't retain value is because they are less scarce. Now work backwards.

Yep exactly. Quod erat demonstrandum