[irq-1]

> I suspect this is how we wound up with NFTs, the metaverse, and the clunky VR/AR headsets.

VR/AR is because new tech allows us to do something... that we haven't figured out yet. It's not driven by visions of the future but by hardware advances.

The metaverse was an old idea that Zuckerberg hyped because Facebook became un-cool. It was meant to keep the company relevant and let it change the name away from Facebook.

NFTs was an attempt to copy moneys move to the digital world like bitcoin. Whether idealistic or crass opportunism is debatable, but broken tech ideas are nothing new.

[pstuart]

NFTs had no valid reasons to exist, other than to provide money laundering opportunities and to con rubes out of their cash. There's plenty to not like about crypto and at the top of that list is NFTs.

[jfengel]

Some artists right at the beginning liked the idea that an NFT contract could let them keep some fraction of the rights. That way, if the work later sold for a large sum, they could earn some money off of it.

But they were quickly disillusioned. The space instantly filled with crap art sold by scammers. Developers, of course, knew that would happen, but artists don't always have that same instinct for the way the worst possible use of a technology will overwhelm all others.

[georgemcbay]

> Some artists right at the beginning liked the idea that an NFT contract could let them keep some fraction of the rights.

NFTs never provided a single thing that a normal paper contract couldn't.

They provided neither enhanced practical protections vs copying nor any enhanced intellectual property legal protections.

Any artists who thought NFTs accomplished anything at all other than a brief wave of hype were misinformed.

[dpoloncsak]

Non-fungible Tokens by themselves did nothing wrong

[horsawlarway]

But they also did very little that was useful.

For most items, we aren't struggling to track ownership - We're struggling to enforce it.

[estimator7292]

Same vibes as "guns don't kill people"

[akimbostrawman]

So... you agree? Because last time I checked we punish and sentence people for using guns to kill and not the guns themselves. Same applies to any other non human "thing", unless you are maybe Amish or part of some other type of dogmatic religious group.

[dieselgate]

I was previously a long term dev contractor for a stock photography company. NFTs have function in the ownership of digital assets, though I do not personally advocate for them (the company or the use of NFTs).

[pstuart]

Per a cursory question on the Goog I got: 95% of collections are now considered worthless.

I worked at a blockchain startup back in the day and despite the PTSD of working with insane people, I appreciate the concept of the blockchain. I've yet to see any mainstream value in it. Sure bitcoin is worth a lot but it's not because of the inherent value of blockchain finance, it's because there's too much money out there and everybody loves a fat bubble asset.

[Ekaros]

I never got what would blockchain do better except maybe distribution. And even there raise questions of efficiency of having data copied in a lot of places.

Correcting data is also always fun question. Your keys are stolen, now your house is not yours anymore as record is immutable. Oh it is not actually immutable if someone says it is not (replace it with new record )? What was the point again...

[pstuart]

The appeal to me is that it is effectively a "serverless" shared immutable ledger. By "serverless" I mean that not a service behind someone's API that one just has to trust the data emitted.

I think it could be useful for contracts and governance but the whole crypto thing is just pointless (except ostensibly for cases of transferring money), which is helpful as a tool but as an investment just strikes me as nuts. Which is why I prudently said hell no to buying bitcoin at $20 because it was a stupid fad. Sigh.