NFTs occupy an interesting intersection between being relatively low effort to implement but having a very high ability to grab headlines and free publicity.
Can you think of any other easy feature that would get Photoshop into the headlines?
Adding NFT functionality to anything is an easy way to get free press right now. It’s also why so many of the aimless influencers are rushing to NFT topics: They can use those free headlines to build followings and communities.
But despite all the hype, it doesn’t seem to be the starving artists making money on NFTs. It’s all established crypto speculators and crypto businesses selling shovels in this gold rush. The starving artists are just a clever narrative to distract from who’s actually profiting.
> “… it doesn’t seem to be the starving artists making money on NFTs”
Starving artists are the marks for this scam. They spend $50 on Ethereum and other fees to mint some NFTs, nobody buys them, and they remain starving — but the crypto ecosystem has extracted another chunk of real money from hopefuls at the base of the pyramid.
A few of them have to make money, otherwise the ponzi scheme blows up right away. Some of the artists involved likely understand that dynamic and they are betting on being a early adopter, getting paid and getting out before the flames consume the house. Some of the victims are merely aspiring coconspirators, if not most.
Agreed. I have had several artists reach out to me to help them mint NFTS and I explained to them why its a bad idea and how they will most likely lose money. Only one of them ended up minting an NFT and are still in the red.
> But despite all the hype, it doesn’t seem to be the starving artists making money on NFTs. It’s all established crypto speculators and crypto businesses selling shovels in this gold rush. The starving artists are just a clever narrative to distract from who’s actually profiting.
That's the weird thing about NFTs. I hear its supposed to help artists, but a lot of the popular NFTs have literally no names or public people associated with them. Maybe I'm just looking at the wrong ones, but for instance look at Bored Ape yacht club. You can't find the name of a single person associated with it. The art is cool sure, but you don't know what you're supporting. For all we know it could be a spin-off of a Russian bot farms with art lifted from other places.
It was all trademarked last month. It's still pending!
That's the grift. A handful of artists get paid and push the story that NFTs help artists. Throngs of starving artists throw their money onto the pile, only to never receive a cent.
>Can you think of any other easy feature that would get Photoshop into the headlines?
Reminds me of, circa 2017-2018, when anything with blockchain or ICO or the like would make a headline. The most obvious ones that stick in my mind were the "Long Island Iced Tea" rename[0] and the KodakCoin.[1]
I mean - yes, we can see coins moved around on blockchains. But how do we know that those coins aren't just moving from one pocket to another of the same person?
Any ideas on how to look at the NFT market and estimate its size would be very appreciated.
I throw in one idea in myself: The Alexa rank of the NFT marketplaces. opensea.io is at #407 which is higher than coinbase.com which is at #798. So this might be an indication that there really is something happening here.
I came into the thread to post my own eye roll like reaction to this, but you beat me to it. I'd love to know who the internal champion was at Adobe pushing this feature forward. Sure they could be working on performance improvements, improving the UI, or one of the myriad of outstanding and long lasting bugs, but instead, we're going to add in an NFT output filter!
Can someone please point me to a concise description of what an NFT is? The usual answer is "DUH! It's a non-fungible token" as if that explains everything.
I get that it's an image (maybe any digital media?) and it is associated with an entry on a blockchain somewhere but then I get confused.
For example, that beautiful graphic you're going to print and hang on your wall can still be copied just as readily as any other digital file so how is all that money someone paid for it worth anything?
If you copy it and change the color of 1 pixel (indistinguishable from the original) then reissue a new NFT, does that count?
=========================================
EDIT: I won't pollute the thread with individual replies but thank you everyone for the wisdom and insight. I have a much better picture of how it all works now.
An NFT is basically a link to a URL stored on a blockchain. Websites can host an artist's image at a specific URL and help them sell the NFT as a kind of "crypto-autograph" for the artwork. It doesn't mean the actual artwork gets stored on the blockchain, it doesn't actually transfer ownership or copyright to the work, and it doesn't prevent e.g. the servers actually hosting the artwork from going down. It's basically a digital commemorative plaque that says "The owner of this token "bought" the artwork at [URL]".
People will pay millions for an original Monet. Why? Digital image reproduction is perfect and the image is in public domain.
The answer is you’re buying status and provenance. The original Monet holds special value because of arbitrary cultural conventions. Someone can create a perfect replica to look at, but the replica dies not confer social status.
We now have a generation of crypto-native multimillionaires. I know many on this forum are pissed off about the fact. Many think all this crypto wealth shouldn’t exist. And many think the bubble will burst any day now.
All of which could be true. But the facts in the ground today is that there’s huge amounts of crypto native wealth. Just the same as 19th century Robber Barons are going to spend money on things that confer social status among other 19th century Robber Barons, crypto native millionaires are going to buy things that confer social status among crypto native millionaires.
For crypto native people, crypto provenance is as valuable as original copies are to Robber Barons. Again this is all just arbitrary social conventions one way or another. As long as the crypto ecosystem continues to generate massive wealth, expect the highest status goods among that subculture to command lofty prices.
> I get that it's an image (maybe any digital media?) and it is associated with an entry on a blockchain somewhere but then I get confused.
Not entirely correct. The NFT confers ownership of the NFT, not the asset it "represents" unless otherwise specified in a regular old contract or terms of sale. Often times the copywrite of the NFT's asset isn't even transferred correctly to the NFT owner.
It's not an image. It's simply a piece of text that says, "This piece of text is unique. Signed, John Smith" and you can pay John Smith to edit that text to say "This piece of text is unique - Signed, John Smith and Jane Adams". This text is publicly available for all to see. Some people like to put in that text a URL to a picture they like.
I think it's good for society that we care about things which may not directly affect us.
Having said that, the original poster is an artist, and the NFT craze is driven by a scam which disproportionately affects artists. I can see why they might be upset about that.
The whole Ethereum-based tokens (ERC-20 only) and NFT (ERC-721) ecosystem is a gigantic, elaborate scam which only just helps influencers to use their fame to cash in on exit scamming their fans into thinking they are buying and holding something that has 'value' with no use.
Instead they are paying immense gas fees to cover the cost of every. single. transaction.
I don't understand the unfettered hatred many have for NFTs. This is the first technology to come along and offer artists an actual avenue to payment for their creative work, and for fans to directly engage with and support with artists.
For once, photographers, artists, musicians, countless others can be in control of their own distribution and the terms of it.
Yes, you can right-click and save jpegs but that is sort of the point! Similar to having a print in your living room, copies of the original serve as marketing for it. People who own or sell NFTs aren't doing it just to "own" a jpeg, it's a digital representation of something purchased, or proof of attendance.
>This is the first technology to come along and offer artists an actual avenue to payment for their creative work, and for fans to directly engage with and support with artists.
Except for, ya know, Bandcamp, Patreon, PayPal, so on and so forth...
>For once... musicians... can be in control of their own distribution and the terms of it.
Bandcamp has always offered this for musicians? Artists in all mediums could always host their own website and take whatever payment/amount they want through PayPal or other processors? Am I crazy?
Edit:
>People who own or sell NFTs aren't doing it just to "own" a jpeg, it's a digital representation of something purchased, or proof of attendance.
Not to keep focusing on Bandcamp specifically, but again - Bandcamp. If I buy music there, my user thumbnail is listed under "supported by" on that track/album's page, and it's added to my public-facing-by-default collection list. Got a piece of music in physical form that you bought elsewhere? Cool, add it to your Discogs collection and keep your profile public.
Artists are marks in the NFT scam, paying large NFT minting fees with very few actual NFTs being sold to recoup costs.
It's not like artists are lacking ways to monetize apart from NFTs. If a popular artist can extract value from their art through it, more power to them, but the median artist is losing money from the enterprise.
Given that the majority of the NFT ecosystem is running on Ethereum which still has the gigantic fees that come with swapping tokens, purchasing tokens, staking them and minting an NFT, the artist will end up losing more money than they actually put in and will sit with their unsold NFTs forever or will sell it in frustration at a loss.
Adobe knows it is a scam. That's why they are merely selling shovels to fuel the hype and they win regardless if the would NFT market crashes.
Because any explanation of what an NFT is makes clear that it’s completely worthless in virtually every context. People are promoting NFTs by buying and selling them for high amounts to associates to create the fake appearance of value.
There’s no value to any of them. It’s literally just an attempt to sell bits that aren’t unique or are easily reproduced.
Imagine if Taylor Swift sold a limited number of mp3 NFTs of a new song of hers. The song would immediately be copied leaving the purchased NFT’s as completely useless.
There’s no legal binding with them for any physical assets, so the entire thing is essentially a Ponzi scheme.
>Imagine if Taylor Swift sold a limited number of mp3 NFTs of a new song of hers.
Several artists have created "limited" or 1/1 NFTs, with full knowledge that whatever media contained therein could be easily digitally replicated. It's not about legality or tangible qualities, it's a pure digital ownership model.
Whoever wins this auction isn't paying money for an actual object (the film), it's buying the digitally-provable representation of the film that exists in their wallet, that they got (almost) directly from David Lynch.
If I buy a painting though, it's irreplaceable and can't truly be replicated. Can't say the same of digital. I suppose there's "bragging rights", but if someone was like "I own the original doge image NFT" I think I'd roll my eyes and think less of them.
The NFT might or might not become the main one, but also the painting remains the painting - able to create as many other NFTs as they want if only for the lulz.
> For once, photographers, artists, musicians, countless others can be in control of their own distribution and the terms of it.
That's strange, I have been purchasing digital comics, books and art online for years. Some use WooCommerce, some use Shopify or BigCartel. But they all work, and they get the artist paid.
How do artists have more control if they have to give a cut to a marketplace like OpenSea, and then have to use an exchange to convert useless ETH into food and rent payments?
You joke, but even some of the most poorly engineered streaming services, like Crave.ca, managed to implement screenshot blocking.
Seriously, this is a service whose Android app always appears as "unavailable in your region" (I'm in Canada), yet it allows mobile browsers to play the content just fine, except for the screenshot blocking.
Can you think of any other easy feature that would get Photoshop into the headlines?
Adding NFT functionality to anything is an easy way to get free press right now. It’s also why so many of the aimless influencers are rushing to NFT topics: They can use those free headlines to build followings and communities.
But despite all the hype, it doesn’t seem to be the starving artists making money on NFTs. It’s all established crypto speculators and crypto businesses selling shovels in this gold rush. The starving artists are just a clever narrative to distract from who’s actually profiting.