4 ms·

You are entirely misunderstanding the purpose of NFTs. As a first-hand buyer, you are paying to act as a patron for artists/projects that you believe in. You e

You are entirely misunderstanding the purpose of NFTs. As a first-hand buyer, you are paying to act as a patron for artists/projects that you believe in. You enable those people to spend time producing more art that you like. This is a very interesting and valuable use-case in and of itself. I have recently started putting up my digital work and it is the first time in my life (41) that I can create unique works and have access to a market that allows people to support me. Don't poo poo what you don't really understand. For anyone interested: https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/58789883292276363432626242406826596569980987264880464997549246459021856079873 https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c2484200... I have a store up here: https://www.ramijames.com/ https://www.ramijames.com/

puranjay 5y ago
My wife had a conference yesterday that was initially going to be held in Berlin but because of the pandemic, happened entirely online. The conference organizers set up a virtual environment in Gather.town where your avatar could walk around a game-like virtual room and initiate conversations with people (over Zoom) by walking up to them. There were different rooms where you could attend different sessions. For my wife and most of the academics present, it was their first virtual/gaming experience, and they all loved it. People don’t realize it but the metaverse is here already. In the metaverse, your avatar is your digital identity. How much would people be willing to pay for a more desirable digital identity (avatar)? What if that digital identity also got you exclusive access to select clubs? None of this is new - people pay tons of money for more desirable real world identities (clothes, makeup, accessories). If we spend half our lives online, is it really surprising that people will eventually want a more desirable online identity too?
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
  Gamers have been spending real money for proprietary "skins" for quite a while now. Epic makes billions on FortNite through such a system. But they are only able to charge such fees because they are in control of the system. They would never voluntarily give up that control if they could. Making the world that players choose to socialize in is where the hard work is. Facebook is betting that the Metaverse is the next step. The Metaverse is already here, and it's called VRchat. There are millions of skins that chatters can use for free, though like early YouTube much of it is breaking copyright. It takes real skill to create a skin, and if you want a custom skin there are people willing to pay for the creation of a skin that fits them. These custom jobs can take modelers tens to hundreds of hours sculpting and animating and they can charge thousands for their hardwork. This is all already happening. That is to say, I see no reason that NFTs or cryptocurrency changes any of this. It's just false scarcity. The artists are already getting paid for their work.
arcticbull 5y ago
> Don't poo poo what you don't really understand. Don't assume anyone who disagrees with you doesn't understand haha. I'm quite familiar with the various narratives. I really do understand haha. You can support artists without NFTs, obviously, people in many western cultures just don't want to support artists. The speculation is totally unrelated to supporting artists. There's something in it for them. That's more than likely money laundering plus a few lucky folks getting swept up in the speculation or manufacturing their own speculative demand in an illiquid market through wash sales. If we look at the biggest most successful NFT project in recent weeks, BAYC, that was some dude who paid artists a few bucks on Fiverr then re-sold the resulting work for hundreds of millions of dollars. The artists got almost nothing, on Fiverr, it was the speculator who cashed in. If you're interested in expanding your perspective, this podcast explores both sides - with an NFT artist and a crypto skeptic, who are friends IRL, discussing the market for an hour. It's a fairly balanced take for the most part, IMO. [1] I can be a patron of artists I want to support with PayPal, Stripe or Patreon. That's been the case forever. That's not what this is about. So... I regularly listen to both sides of the debate. Do you? [1] https://open.spotify.com/episode/7KcZ8uZLre4Wuzj5Lf8JPc?si=yOnx6xlATaOAQXPkovoHcg&dl_branch=1 https://open.spotify.com/episode/7KcZ8uZLre4Wuzj5Lf8JPc?si=y...

puranjay 5y ago

My wife had a conference yesterday that was initially going to be held in Berlin but because of the pandemic, happened entirely online. The conference organizers set up a virtual environment in Gather.town where your avatar could walk around a game-like virtual room and initiate conversations with people (over Zoom) by walking up to them. There were different rooms where you could attend different sessions. For my wife and most of the academics present, it was their first virtual/gaming experience, and they all loved it. People don’t realize it but the metaverse is here already. In the metaverse, your avatar is your digital identity. How much would people be willing to pay for a more desirable digital identity (avatar)? What if that digital identity also got you exclusive access to select clubs? None of this is new - people pay tons of money for more desirable real world identities (clothes, makeup, accessories). If we spend half our lives online, is it really surprising that people will eventually want a more desirable online identity too?

ItsMonkk 5y ago
Gamers have been spending real money for proprietary "skins" for quite a while now. Epic makes billions on FortNite through such a system. But they are only able to charge such fees because they are in control of the system. They would never voluntarily give up that control if they could. Making the world that players choose to socialize in is where the hard work is. Facebook is betting that the Metaverse is the next step. The Metaverse is already here, and it's called VRchat. There are millions of skins that chatters can use for free, though like early YouTube much of it is breaking copyright. It takes real skill to create a skin, and if you want a custom skin there are people willing to pay for the creation of a skin that fits them. These custom jobs can take modelers tens to hundreds of hours sculpting and animating and they can charge thousands for their hardwork. This is all already happening. That is to say, I see no reason that NFTs or cryptocurrency changes any of this. It's just false scarcity. The artists are already getting paid for their work.

arcticbull 5y ago

> Don't poo poo what you don't really understand. Don't assume anyone who disagrees with you doesn't understand haha. I'm quite familiar with the various narratives. I really do understand haha. You can support artists without NFTs, obviously, people in many western cultures just don't want to support artists. The speculation is totally unrelated to supporting artists. There's something in it for them. That's more than likely money laundering plus a few lucky folks getting swept up in the speculation or manufacturing their own speculative demand in an illiquid market through wash sales. If we look at the biggest most successful NFT project in recent weeks, BAYC, that was some dude who paid artists a few bucks on Fiverr then re-sold the resulting work for hundreds of millions of dollars. The artists got almost nothing, on Fiverr, it was the speculator who cashed in. If you're interested in expanding your perspective, this podcast explores both sides - with an NFT artist and a crypto skeptic, who are friends IRL, discussing the market for an hour. It's a fairly balanced take for the most part, IMO. [1] I can be a patron of artists I want to support with PayPal, Stripe or Patreon. That's been the case forever. That's not what this is about. So... I regularly listen to both sides of the debate. Do you? [1] https://open.spotify.com/episode/7KcZ8uZLre4Wuzj5Lf8JPc?si=yOnx6xlATaOAQXPkovoHcg&dl_branch=1 https://open.spotify.com/episode/7KcZ8uZLre4Wuzj5Lf8JPc?si=y...