[scotchmi_st]

The following rant is probably obvious to a lot of people but I really have to get it off my chest.

I really don't get NFTs. I feel like every article I read about them (even the critical ones) is describing them in a way which then turns out to be far more mundane.

People (such as the author here) talk about how they are the digital equivalent of trading cards. Pokemon, M:TG etc work because the cards themselves are hard to accurately duplicate. But the images and other digital items supposedly traded via NFTs can all be duplicated easily, like any other file on a computer. The only thing you get here is a record in a database with your (virtual) name on it next to a hash of the file. That's it. It's not even like your 'ownership' according to this database would have any legal implications.

A real world example might be a card system where anyone could easily scan and print out the same card as the one you own, but that in some database somewhere, there's a record of your ownership of the card. It doesn't matter. Everyone has a copy of your card anyway. The reality is that you aren't the owner of it, whatever your protestations.

[megaman821]

I can see some uses for fandom.

* If the tickets to concerts were NFTs, you could limit forum access to concert attendees as proven by their NFTs. * If purchase of a digital album was connected to NFTs, a band could offer a special perk to their original fans.

Personally, I don't get the art thing. Good art is inherently valuable because viewer of the art (my eyes) are built directly into my body. In 1,000 years it is entirely possible no one is going to be able to view a jpeg, or the host of the image has disappeared off the internet. Even URLs that don't disappear are problematic, you want a URL the connected to the hash of the file contents so you can be assured that the file is never changed.

[scotchmi_st]

The concert ticket thing is perhaps one use I hadn't thought of. But that seems like a niche solution to a problem that doesn't really exist, and doesn't really solve it anyway? People often buy tickets often in order to resell them outside the venue. That just means the touter handing over the unique private key they used to buy the ticket along with the ticket itself, surely. They same goes for forum access, or anything else.

[yellowapple]

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it, too, but I think the idea is that there's ostensibly value in "legitimately" owning a work, as opposed to making your own copy. That is: it's proof that the work is "for" you.

Currently it seems to just be a status symbol, but I feel like it could evolve into a newfangled version of license keys - i.e. proof that you're authorized to have a copy at all, or that you're licensed to incorporate a work in your own work (e.g. songs in videos, or photos on websites, or what have you).

[scotchmi_st]

> That is: it's proof that the work is "for" you.

I mean yeah, but it's all just semantics in the end, isn't it? The art (or whatever else) may have been made for you, but it doesn't matter- de facto, it's in the public realm. I'm over here, enjoying the thing, even if some database somewhere says you own it.

As for the license keys idea, is that such a big problem? Do people actively go around stealing license keys from other people? Willingly making copies for your friends and colleagues, sure, but that's no different to giving your friends and colleagues the private key tied to the token, which presumably would be possible if you create a new one per transaction.

[yellowapple]

> Willingly making copies for your friends and colleagues, sure, but that's no different to giving your friends and colleagues the private key tied to the token, which presumably would be possible if you create a new one per transaction.

That would also give said friends and colleagues the ability to sell your license on the cheap.

Which is what I'm getting at: an NFT-like licensing system would make it possible to formally transfer the rights conferred by that license to someone else, without the original vendor needing to be in the loop. And further, it basically replaces the notion of product registration, since that registration is built into the license: whoever owns the token for that license is automatically the registered user.

And on that note:

> Do people actively go around stealing license keys from other people?

Yes, all the time. A large chunk of the market for Windows product keys in particular comes from people "stealing" them; it's a big reason why sharing photos of product key stickers on computers is typically a bad idea.

An NFT-ish license system would eliminate this sort of product key swiping and actually legitimize product key resale/transfer, so it's a win-win-win as far as the original vendor, resellers, and buyers/users are concerned. Pirates suffer a bit, though, since it wouldn't be enough to just generate a key from scratch anymore (but that's what cracks are for, yaharrr).

[iamwil]

You're in luck! I wrote the post just for you. I address how the pleasure of ownership is different than pleasure of enjoyment, and what sort of things it can confer. However, do you have to keep reading.