[kashyapc]

I'll quote this response[1] from the other day's thread:

"Imagine a world where all or most of our interactions are in the digital realm. When you wake up in this place you are naked, cannot show anyone anything about yourself, but you are very rich. Now how do you show others that you are rich? Simple, you buy Gucci NFT clothes that other naked peasants can see. That's what's happening."

Someone in the thread elaborated:

"Nah... it's much worse: you're buying a banner that hangs over your head saying 'I own Gucci clothes', but you're still naked."

Elsewhere, a colleague of mine (also an artist) elaborated still further:

"Even worse: the person you bought the banner from can set fire to it at any time and you'll be left with nothing."

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29160040 ("NFT's aren't the answer to the problems of digital art")

[Cthulhu_]

You get a certificate of ownership for your clothes - but you don't actually hold that certificate, it's a digital record in some database.

I mean, it's as valuable as what others believe it's worth, and like any common object with the word 'supreme' on it, there's people who consider these things valuable.

[nefitty]

The best analogy I've heard is, "Imagine you spent $1,000 for a painting. Now, instead, imagine you spent $1,000 to buy the receipt."

[ASalazarMX]

And any other person can have an identical painting, but without the receipt.

NFTs are a scam to introduce artificial scarcity and make someone else pay for it. The "art" (speaking of the picture in the root comment) hardly has any value itself.

[metters]

I agree, but also have to add: Does any (normal, non digital) art (say picture or sculpture) have any value itself? Besides the value of the material of course.

[nybble41]

That last point ("can set fire to it at any time") is wrong, at least for the many NFTs which use decentralized content-addressed hosting such as IPFS. Or even without the hosting, as long as the NFT identifies the content in sufficient detail—a hash is best but a plain-English description can also work. You just need to save the content yourself so it doesn't disappear if the original host shuts down. No matter what the seller does you'll still have your certificate.

I mostly agree regarding the limited practical value of most art NFTs, but then you could say the same about signed & numbered physical prints which are otherwise indistinguishable from their unsigned/unnumbered (but cheaper) equivalents—yet people pay a premium for those too.

NFTs are pretty general, so one could associate them with licensing or something like a VIP / backstage pass or rewards club membership. In the absence of these things, however, what you're mostly buying is the digital equivalent of the artist's autograph. Which isn't exactly nothing, but I still have a hard time justifying the prices many of these NFTs trade at.