[blueski]

Limiting ourselves to the digital world - does ownership of an NFT give me any more rights to experience or enjoy a piece of work than a non-owner? If someone else wanted to use my Bored Ape as their Twitter photo, could I stop them?

[vmception]

Yes, it does. Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), for example, has physical clubs and events that require users to prove provenance for access. This means signing an address that is a current owner, and applies to both physical and digital access of tertiary goods and services. Signing an address proves access to that address and means they have the private key to move everything.

The "right click and save as" "screenshot" and "twitter photo" people would not have access. Even the replicants discussed in the OP here would not have access.

Additionally, many popular NFTs, like BAYC, get airdropped many things for attention, some of which have varying degrees of value, or BAYC may be the only ones available to mint another new NFT being dropped. This would be enforced at the code or smart contract level. It is common for many less valuable or otherwise uninteresting NFTs to partner up and collaborate with other NFTs to make this chain of communities. Sometimes that results in some level of value. By common, I mean over the last 5 months in the NFT space. This concept has pre-dated NFT related things, and some of my best trades have been from either receiving airdrops or claiming things that went on to have a lot of value. But I really like some of the worthless things I've claimed too.

[blueski]

> "physical clubs and events that require users to prove provenance for access"

Feels like the "access to physical events" problem was solved before NFTs.

> The "right click and save as" "screenshot" and "twitter photo" people would not have access.

But per original question - if I wanted to use any Bored Ape as my Twitter photo, is there anything stopping me?

Take your point re: additional digital goods being delivered on chain, just feels a little anemic vs the richness of everything else available for free (or behind a membership) online. If users didn't care primarily about price appreciation, not sure whether that part would be exciting.

Maybe it requires the collector gene to be enthused? If so, can these kinds of Web3 applications ever go mainstream as Web2 apps?

[vmception]

> Feels like the "access to physical events" problem was solved before NFTs.

I don't really consider it solved, has Ticketmaster solved festival passes in a way everyone likes? When organizers aren't using ticketmaster, is transferring the ticket solved or is it rife with scams and abuse and arbitrary restrictions and guesswork. The tertiary benefit is also not something NFT's are aiming to solve. You asked and got an answer about what people are doing. Not what it was created to do.

There is nothing stopping you from using a Twitter photo. Also not something an NFT was claiming to solve. This is just a viral strawman where other people created a use case that wasn't presented and then criticized that use case to discredit the other thing. If you want to pretend to own something valuable or be part of a community you can still do that. I don't really understand what that means to you. I guess that's a good follow up question, what does that mean to you?

There is nothing wrong with speculation. This is not exclusive to the NFT space either when it comes to art or any collectible. I'm really having trouble with all the higher standards you are procedurally generating for this one space.

In any case, membership is actually a good example. If NYTimes stopped making infinite memberships, paid monthly, and instead limited it to, say, 100,000 memberships and some of their operation was funded by a portion of royalties when one of the membership was traded, what would the memberships cost? What would people be willing to pay? What would NYTimes have to do to make people willing to pay for access to their investigative journalism? All that's happening is that you are seeing price discovery in a place where there was none. Replace NYTimes with one of the finance ones like WSJ, if that's easier. or with Soho House memberships.

[blueski]

> I don't really consider it solved, has Ticketmaster solved festival passes in a way everyone likes?

I hate Ticketmaster as much as the next guy, but had a fine experience with the resellers (e.g. StubHub) which offer many things NFTs do not - like customer service (with an actual phone number), a centralized record if I lose my ticket, refunds if the seller mis-represents, no requirement to buy an asset that will likely fluctuate wildly in price, and transaction fees likely lower than gas fees. Not sold on giving up those benefits.

> If you want to pretend to own something valuable or be part of a community you can still do that. I don't really understand what that means to you. I guess that's a good follow up question, what does that mean to you?

I haven't been part of one of these communities, so hard to comment on the value of being a true member or just appearing to be one. If Bored Apes lost 99% of their value, would the community remain equally rich and engaged? What do they truly have in common?

> If NYTimes stopped making infinite memberships, paid monthly, and instead limited it to, say, 100,000 memberships and some of their operation was funded by a portion of royalties when one of the membership was traded, what would the memberships cost?

I'm skeptical limiting access to quality journalism and inflating the price can really be counted as a good use case. For a Soho House membership, I'd much prefer to pay a monthly rate based on what I'm receiving - rather than speculate that (a) they'll continue improving the offer, such that the value of my token will increase; (b) the broader NFT market won't crash.

Soho House's financial team would also likely want to project their earnings next year without making assumptions around sustained interest in NFTs.

[vmception]

Perfect, now we've moved to pragmatic criticism of the current state of NFTs that have nothing to do with the concept of NFTs.

(Non NFT tickets fluctuate wildly in price. Transaction fees on almost all chains are extremely low as gas is negligible in cost, with Ethereum mainnet being an exception.)

So we have less revocable or irrevocable digital goods that are tradable, scarce per collection that provably predates any subsequent issuance, tertiary benefits to physical and digital access, and membership. Even if this technology only was considered to do any of each of those things moderately well, instead of replacing any incumbent implementation, you still have trouble with .... what exactly? We've now agreed that each one is a single asset that does many things at least decently well without any custom implementation needed to be built even if the existing ONE thing in each category has an okay incumbent, and you get a fun picture to go with it. Yes, to some people that has aggregate value.

What are you still having trouble with at this point:

-Whether you should ever own/possess one?

-Whether you should ever use money to own/possess one?

-Something about speculation being bad?

-Something about not knowing if the market will still be there for resell and wondering if that would make everyone else leave the NFT space?

It seems like cognitive dissonance to me, since some of these ideas compete with each other.

[blueski]

> pragmatic criticism of the current state of NFTs that have nothing to do with the concept of NFTs.

Which NFTs include a central authority able to re-issue my ticket if I lose it, address mis-representation by sellers, give refunds if the performance doesn't happen, etc? Isn't that lack of a central authority - and its attendant downsides - core to the medium?

> Non NFT tickets fluctuate wildly in price.

Which non NFT tickets have fluctuated like Bored Ape NFTs this year, and which are highly susceptible to market sentiment for the entire ticketing medium?

> What are you still having trouble with at this point:

Trying to understand how many people I respect have such enthusiasm for a medium which appears to have many downsides vs the status quo - and not yet a killer app like e.g. Gmail, Maps, Facebook to justify the Web2->Web3 transition. No doubt I'm missing something, just trying to understand what.

There's been enthusiasm for smart contracts for 5+ years, but which mainstream consumer or B2B apps have yet implemented them for non-speculation use cases?

How would it be progress for the New York Times to restrict access to quality journalism - or for Soho House to expose its future cash flows to extreme market volatility?