4 ms·

NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

biolurker1 6y ago
Almost everything innovative sounds like a dangerous trap to conservative thinkers. Artists disagree and flock into this new digital era.
- Can_Not 6y ago
  Obviously the reason artists would flock to NFTs are for easy etherium profits. Buyers are correctly skeptical of how vague and poorly articulated the value proposition is for them.
  - biolurker1 6y ago
    Yes as groundbreaking as it sounds artists sell art for money in any for.and buyers buy at whatever price they think is worth it. Especially the art market is not based on fundamental valuation.
kaczordon 6y ago
Imagine getting special access to an artist because you have 100 of his NFT’s or you get a priority queue for an event if you have a certain type of NFT. The possibilities are endless and super exciting for both creators and consumers.
- simonw 6y ago
  Imagine getting special access to an artist at an event and all you have to do is personally set fire to a few square meters of rain forest. Convince me this is an unreasonable metaphor!
- vineyardmike 6y ago
  Why can’t this by less wasteful: eg Patreon or other simple subscriptions. Or just records in a DB. In the model of rewards by an artist, no one has an incentive to lie (the purpose nft protects against) and ownership has no true meaning or value.
- Can_Not 6y ago
  Sounds more like a blackmirror episode to be honest.
treelovinhippie 6y ago
NFT koolaid: "NFTs are scarce therefore valuable" Me: Ctrl+C Ctrl+V NFT koolaid (real comment): "Using your argument, original Warhol screenprints are also worthless." There's that sunk cost Godin is hinting at.
- treelovinhippie 6y ago
  The scarcity===value justification of NFTs is ridiculous. The only way to make digital artefacts "scarce" would be to never render them to pixels. You can't make a perfect copy of the Mona Lisa, but you can make a perfect copy of any digital NFT every single time. And thus the only way nyan cat can be worth $600k is a hyper-DRM dystopia where everyone gets sued for sharing it.
aketchum 6y ago
It seems strange to me that the article and some of these comments are talking about how the scarcity is artificial. Of course the scarcity is artificial! Magic Cards, Pokemon cards, sports trading cards, Supreme merch, yeezy shoes... all of these business models are based on artificial scarcity. There are time honed methods to figure out exactly how many to sell to keep the market thriving without flooding it. Most of the examples I listed are also easily reproducible (how hard would it be to make a replica NBA rookie card with the right printer?), yet the fakes are worthless while the "Authentic" ones are work tens-hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  >Of course the scarcity is artificial! Magic Cards, Pokemon cards, sports trading cards, Supreme merch, yeezy shoes... all of these business models are based on artificial scarcity. However sports cards originally did not have a significantly similar business model, until after natural scarcity had occurred. >There are time honed methods to figure out exactly how many to sell to keep the market thriving without flooding it. So true. >fakes are worthless while the "Authentic" ones are work tens-hundreds of thousands of dollars. Because of this, lots of times the purchase of a _certified_ collectible amounts to a greater value attached to the certificate than the collectible.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
suikadayo 6y ago
While his environmental impact point is true with PoW, Ethereum is moving to PoS so it won’t be as problematic as Bitcoin. People fail to realize that it’s still the 1997 Geocities moment for NFTs - there’s a lot to be explored and experimented with.
- pcthrowaway 6y ago
  Cardano is (delegated) PoS from conception, and supports NFTs
torstenvl 6y ago
This is just some guy's rant. It doesn't teach anything or contain any information. It doesn't even explain what an NFT is (non-fungible token). It's not appropriate for HN.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
kderbyma 6y ago
I may be wrong BUT I am sure that NFTs will be packaged with physical goods. the item will add relevance to the NFT and then over time, the NFT will hold the real value (ie. serial number etc) - allowing for mix and match. oh you have the physical but you have a bad NFT vs having a first edition NFT and the physical
rdtwo 6y ago
How are nft any different than buying cards in MTG online or hearthstone? At least you can sell em to the next sucker when you are done. Although top shot is like MTG in that they make it near impossible to do more than a token withdrawal

Almost everything innovative sounds like a dangerous trap to conservative thinkers. Artists disagree and flock into this new digital era.

Can_Not 6y ago
Obviously the reason artists would flock to NFTs are for easy etherium profits. Buyers are correctly skeptical of how vague and poorly articulated the value proposition is for them.
- biolurker1 6y ago
  Yes as groundbreaking as it sounds artists sell art for money in any for.and buyers buy at whatever price they think is worth it. Especially the art market is not based on fundamental valuation.

kaczordon 6y ago

Imagine getting special access to an artist because you have 100 of his NFT’s or you get a priority queue for an event if you have a certain type of NFT. The possibilities are endless and super exciting for both creators and consumers.

simonw 6y ago
Imagine getting special access to an artist at an event and all you have to do is personally set fire to a few square meters of rain forest. Convince me this is an unreasonable metaphor!
vineyardmike 6y ago
Why can’t this by less wasteful: eg Patreon or other simple subscriptions. Or just records in a DB. In the model of rewards by an artist, no one has an incentive to lie (the purpose nft protects against) and ownership has no true meaning or value.
Can_Not 6y ago
Sounds more like a blackmirror episode to be honest.

treelovinhippie 6y ago

NFT koolaid: "NFTs are scarce therefore valuable" Me: Ctrl+C Ctrl+V NFT koolaid (real comment): "Using your argument, original Warhol screenprints are also worthless." There's that sunk cost Godin is hinting at.

treelovinhippie 6y ago
The scarcity===value justification of NFTs is ridiculous. The only way to make digital artefacts "scarce" would be to never render them to pixels. You can't make a perfect copy of the Mona Lisa, but you can make a perfect copy of any digital NFT every single time. And thus the only way nyan cat can be worth $600k is a hyper-DRM dystopia where everyone gets sued for sharing it.

aketchum 6y ago

It seems strange to me that the article and some of these comments are talking about how the scarcity is artificial. Of course the scarcity is artificial! Magic Cards, Pokemon cards, sports trading cards, Supreme merch, yeezy shoes... all of these business models are based on artificial scarcity. There are time honed methods to figure out exactly how many to sell to keep the market thriving without flooding it. Most of the examples I listed are also easily reproducible (how hard would it be to make a replica NBA rookie card with the right printer?), yet the fakes are worthless while the "Authentic" ones are work tens-hundreds of thousands of dollars.

fuzzfactor 6y ago
>Of course the scarcity is artificial! Magic Cards, Pokemon cards, sports trading cards, Supreme merch, yeezy shoes... all of these business models are based on artificial scarcity. However sports cards originally did not have a significantly similar business model, until after natural scarcity had occurred. >There are time honed methods to figure out exactly how many to sell to keep the market thriving without flooding it. So true. >fakes are worthless while the "Authentic" ones are work tens-hundreds of thousands of dollars. Because of this, lots of times the purchase of a _certified_ collectible amounts to a greater value attached to the certificate than the collectible.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

suikadayo 6y ago

While his environmental impact point is true with PoW, Ethereum is moving to PoS so it won’t be as problematic as Bitcoin. People fail to realize that it’s still the 1997 Geocities moment for NFTs - there’s a lot to be explored and experimented with.

pcthrowaway 6y ago
Cardano is (delegated) PoS from conception, and supports NFTs

torstenvl 6y ago

This is just some guy's rant. It doesn't teach anything or contain any information. It doesn't even explain what an NFT is (non-fungible token). It's not appropriate for HN.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

kderbyma 6y ago

I may be wrong BUT I am sure that NFTs will be packaged with physical goods. the item will add relevance to the NFT and then over time, the NFT will hold the real value (ie. serial number etc) - allowing for mix and match. oh you have the physical but you have a bad NFT vs having a first edition NFT and the physical

rdtwo 6y ago

How are nft any different than buying cards in MTG online or hearthstone? At least you can sell em to the next sucker when you are done. Although top shot is like MTG in that they make it near impossible to do more than a token withdrawal