[costcofries]

Not surprised that this is the top comment, it seems to be the overwhelming sentiment on HN, which is unfortunate. My perspective is that it's very early for NFTs and the large majority (you included) are fixating on what you're seeing in the space today, or put differently, you're being shortsighted.

Mark your comment down and revisit it in a few years, having an opinion on the sidelines is just fine. Now let the downvotes commence.

[simias]

We've been hearing this tune from cryptoenthusiasts for over a decade now, maybe you should revisit your comments from a few years ago?

If you dig in my own comments on this website you can probably find discussions from 2017 or even earlier where I ask when people think that cryptocurrency tech is going to finally deliver something useful. It's always "one or two years from now". It's always "we're early". Remember ICOs? Remember how it was going to revolutionize IoT? Remember dapps? Remember lightning? It's been around the corner for years now.

Can you think of a single other technical innovation that required so much faith and patience before it delivered? Maybe self-driving cars, but even then I'd argue that it made immense progress compared to blockchain technology.

In the end you can hype it as much as you want, it's still fundamentally just a crappy, slow, extremely inefficient append-only database that's only relevant because it's super good at supporting pyramid schemes.

[58x14]

Really have to challenge this comment.

"We're early" in the internet had the dotcom bubble, the development of mobile 3G infrastructure and devices, the advent of smartphones, the VC-fueled app craze, and then eventually, now. The innovation mostly occurred in certain geographical areas, under the control of a relatively small population, with global impact.

The progression of blockchain technology - and dare I say culture - is speedrunning the history of human communication, including currency. Mainstream attention is high, but not adoption of paramount fundamental tech like ENS for identity and reputation. I'm guessing critical mass sometime in the next 18-36 months.

I also worry you may be subject to observation bias and ensuing feedback loops; if you primarily encounter negative headlines around crypto, it reinforces your opinion. But there are treasure troves of data, assembled by tens of thousands of exceptionally talented engineers, researchers and philosophers, that are also available for your observation. I wonder, if you spent some time there, perhaps your opinions would be more plastic.

[simias]

>I'm guessing critical mass sometime in the next 18-36 months.

And I say in 2025 I'll be having the same discussion I had in 2017 and I'm having right now as somebody will reply to a comment I make on HN telling me that whatever cryptofad of the day is 18-36months away from mainstream adoption.

[exdsq]

Interesting way to describe a computer as a append-only database

[simias]

The blockchain is not a computer. Computers are computers, and since it's trustless every node has to recompute everything.

With enough spin you can make everything sound revolutionary. Smart contracts are effectively like stored procedures, just ridiculously wasteful.

[solean]

"Remember dapps?" There are plenty of useful dapps that exist today.

[zepto]

Such as?

[solean]

An obvious one would be permissionless lending/borrowing (Aave or Compound)

[zepto]

Not obvious as far as I can see. Just moving cryptocurrencies around isn’t necessarily useful.

[swalsh]

When I watched the president of the United States get kicked off every popular social media platform it clicked for me. I never voted for the guy, I never liked the guy. But he was still the president, and it didn't matter. The tech companies demonstrated how much power they truely had. NO ONE should have that much unchecked power.

Before 2020, I was interested in crypto as an academic exercise. In 2021, it became an urgant need. I don't think i'm alone, to me crypto is an exit from the large tech monopolies that dominate our world today.

[blueski]

Partially agree - but people have been excited about e.g. smart contracts for the last ~5 years, yet which consumer or B2B apps are using them now? When Web2 came along, Gmail, Maps and Facebook were immediately exciting and obviously better than what came before. How much longer do we need to wait for those Web3 killer apps, that appeal to users who aren't purely in it for token price speculation?

[MrPatan]

When Gmail came along, like a decade after the web started getting popular, there were countless people, very much like you now, telling everybody how much better their desktop email app was.

Nfts may or may not be the blockchain's killer app (I think they are), but the average person's track record identifying a technology's killer app is a tad less than perfect

[grumple]

> Nfts may or may not be the blockchain's killer app (I think they are)

How is a bit of data on a blockchain pointing to a URI a breakthrough? It's utterly ineffective at proving ownership of anything, since the data at the uri can be changed, or more likely - the entire server will disappear at some point in time. And then what about uris on the blockchain pointing to illegal material (things that are actually copyrighted by someone through the legal system, CP, etc)?

Obviously storing actual data on-chain is too costly as well (both financially on the large chains, and practically/environmentally on any of them).

Everyone I know who's into NFTs and crypto was a con artist before blockchain and they'll be con artists after. Wait until I tell you about the drug addict scammers I know that started a crypto coin of their own and got a friend who knows literally nothing about crypto to write their whitepaper.

[blueski]

I'd argue the exponential growth curves for Gmail, Maps, and Facebook (with no financial reward for the user) suggests there was a good appreciation of the utility. When will get an equivalent Web3 app that isn't predominantly driven by price speculation? What will this look like?

[kranke155]

That’s not here yet but dapps do have millions of users already.

[blueski]

Which stand the best chance of going mainstream, with those who don't care about the underlying technology or price speculation?

[kranke155]

NFTs. Gaming seems to be it.

[pyrale]

I don't see how promoting artificial scarcity is going to become a good idea in a few years. Just because the implementation is shit nowadays doesn't mean we should be happy to see better implementations in the future.

[costcofries]

I'm a hobbyist photographer. I have been publishing my photographs to unsplash for the last 4 years. I have over 100 photos on Adobe contributor. The former has delivered me ZERO inbound or monetary value, just over 3 million downloads of my work. The latter has given me returns I could buy coffee with.

NFTs open a new World of opportunity for me. Not only can other humans easily collect, and compensate me for my work, I also have a whole new stream for consuming royalties. Now think further about the ecosystem potential and all the third parties that consume my unsplash content for free today, NFTs can change that.

[blueski]

In what sense do the purchasers of your NFTs have "ownership" of your work - what could they do with it that I could not, and how is this legally enforced? If NFTv2 comes out in a year with 10x the financial rewards, will you commit to not offering the same pieces again?

[pyrale]

What led you to make your photos available under a free sharing license, if you were expecting returns?

> Not only can other humans easily collect, and compensate me for my work

They could have done it before, what makes you think this technical change will make people want to fund artists more, beyond a momentary financial mania?

[costcofries]

1. The goal with Unsplash has always been marketing exposure and inbound traffic, though unfortunately it just doesn't really exist. So, why are my photos still there? It feels counterproductive to remove something that has ranked so well, for so long, on the platform.

2. Just my opinion - I believe that over time people will increasingly value digital assets, I don't think we're even close to understanding their utility. NFT collectors are a growing segment for artists and things like virtual galleries will represent new places to showcase and share those collections.

Edit - I think people should make an effort to distinguish between visual and "technical or attributable" ownership. Too often these threads on NFTs are, "how do you own something if I can copy it" (the picture). That's missing the point. I don't care if you replicate my NFT and its visual identity, I will always be the owner of the underlying attribute and the evolution of that attribute.

[abduhl]

Then put your hobby where your mouth is. Pull all of your photos from the past 4 years from unsplash and mint NFTs for them.

[costcofries]

That's exactly what I'm doing :)

[timmg]

If I were to buy one of your NFTs, what does that get me?

Do you confer a license to the photo that I can use elsewhere? Can I use it in an ad? Can I sell copies of it?

[swalsh]

NFT's aren't about artificial scarcity, they give owners rights. Being able to control a digital asset is important. Take the ENS (it's like a domian service). Having exclusive control over a domain is not scarcity, it's what makes it practical.

To get in the right mindset, you should stop thinking of NFT's as pictures. That's not the primary use case. It's a stupid game that became popular. NFT's are just tokens on the open blockchain that you can exclusively control.

[zepto]

> they give owners rights

Generally not.

> NFT's are just tokens on the open blockchain that you can exclusively control.

Exactly this, and nothing more.

[officeplant]

I believe a lot of us would be more excited if they weren't also a frustrating grifter paradise.

People rant and rave about how this is a huge when for digital artists while ignoring the darker side. I see more and more small artists venting their frustrations in fighting with the NFT markets to get their stolen art taken down. Also in dealing with crypto bros cyberbullying them for refusing to participate in this whole crypto shit show.

[kranke155]

The stolen art thing is a problem screaming for a technical solution.

Outside of that, 99% of the artist I know are super happy NFTs exist and they can make money out of them.

[zepto]

How many artists do you know?

[kranke155]

Quite a few since I’m a digital artist myself.

[zepto]

That isn’t an answer to my question, but it does explain your financial interest in defending NFTs throughout this thread.

[kranke155]

You mean because they are good for me and they are good for 99% of the digital artists on this planet?