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Ask HN: What's so bad about NFTs?

• wmf 5y ago
  https://www.psl.com/feed-posts/web3-engineer-take https://www.psl.com/feed-posts/web3-engineer-take discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29321987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29321987 My problems with NFTs are (1) it's a bubble (or fraud) being pitched as a good investment and (2) NFTs are pitched as offering "ownership" but none of them do.
  • high_byte 5y ago
    I dislike NFTs for the use in "art ownership" in which sense it may be a bubble/fraud, but the underlying tech has good foundation for practical uses. It is used as gaming items and as tokens for debt and probably some more, but I'd like to see it used for certifications, deeds (apartments, cars). the problem with art is NFTs can be minted infinite times, hence it's not an N-FT, it's a perfectly fungible token...
    • pkdpic 5y ago
      Yeah I've wondered about that since they first started gaining popularity. The series-oriented nature of minting 100 different colored bear gifs with the artist's promise that there will be only 100 doesn't strike me as terribly non-fungible. Obviously they can all become worth different amounts as they sell / resell but still something just seems fundamentally off there.
      • high_byte 5y ago
        what I mean is worse than having colir vareity: there can be 1000s of NFTs without any vareity, except for the index in the series. this can be useful if you buy 1000 spots ("tickets"), and I guess it makes sense for artist to make limited edition prints... but with digital art is pointless.
    • kalleboo 5y ago
      Using NFTs for deeds sounds like the worst idea ever. So now if you get malware on your computer, you lose your house?
    • pjc50 5y ago
      > deeds This problem was solved by centralized databases in 1617. https://www.ros.gov.uk/our-registers/general-register-of-sasines https://www.ros.gov.uk/our-registers/general-register-of-sas...
• joshdance 5y ago
  1. Artificial digital scarcity is usually not needed. 2. It costs an enormous amount of energy to create this artificial digital scarcity. 3. If you own an asset you can generate revenue from it. With NFTs you can't really. The only way to generate revenue is to sell the NFT, for increasingly higher sums. 4. Someone will be left holding the empty bag at the end.
  • facorreia 5y ago
    > Someone will be left holding the empty bag at the end. This. It's a modern variation on tulips.
  • pkdpic 5y ago
    Possibly a separate question, but I was wondering just how serious the energy use problem is. I haven't actually seen what the stats are for carbon footprint etc.
    • pjc50 5y ago
      https://kylemcdonald.github.io/ethereum-emissions/ https://kylemcdonald.github.io/ethereum-emissions/ Estimates that Etherum alone is responsible for a couple of coal power plants. Proof-of-waste is the worst invention since leaded petrol and CFCs.
      • zepto 5y ago
        Thanks for being the first to introduce the term ‘proof of waste’ to me! It’s so obvious on seeing it that proof of work is just not an accurate term to describe what is going on.
      • pkdpic 5y ago
        Thank you so much for the link! And ditto on the thank you for introducing the term proof of waste. Extremely helpful.
  • hmrtn 5y ago
    > Someone will be left holding the empty bag at the end. I fail to see how this is different than any speculative asset?
• cable2600 5y ago
  You don't own the NFT or picture, you just bought the right to the NFT and picture. Anyone can right click the picture and save it to their hard drive. If the picture is stored on a website and that website goes down or deletes the picture you are SOL.
  • jkcxn 5y ago
    As far as I can tell you don't own the right to the picture either. You just buy the right to have your name next to it. Is that right?
    • imtringued 5y ago
      When you think about it, it's like copyright without enforcement...
• renewiltord 5y ago
  There’s a lot of wash trading going on, which is bad, since people get suckered. But NFTs themselves are great. It’s like game skins etc but for lots of things.
• whateveracct 5y ago
  NBA Topshot was a flagship NFT. NBA Topshot would be functionally as good or better if it were handled by a centralized DB owned and managed by the NBA. The only reason it's an NFT is to pump prices due to crypto hype.
• crate_barre 5y ago
  If there’s anything I learned, is that any skepticism tied around crypto tech is generally met by the doubling of the value of whatever you doubted over time. I don’t have real answers for any of this, I just accept this stupid shit is going to be worth what they are saying in 5-10 years time.
  • chaoz_ 5y ago
    I think fear of missing out plays a huge role in it.
    • cpach 5y ago
      I think you nailed it.
  • imtringued 5y ago
    It's a gamble. It's still better than going to the casino.
• blitzar 5y ago
  > What's so bad about NFTs? Nothing. But they are not for me thanks (in current form). Why? None of the arguments really make them inherently bad. Bubble, yes, so if they were free / 0.0001c would NFTs be good? People make / lose money? Hype? Legal ownership / non ownership? By that metric everything is bad, especially in the tech space. The internet economy is in a very interesting place at the moment. Donation / patronage / support things are everywhere, and for the most part, NFTs are in this space for me. The whole space is something I am yet to properly form a mental model of. Donations to streamers, patreon, onlyfans, substack, most of kickstarter all in a similar bucket.
• m0llusk 5y ago
  The only real purpose served is to enable money laundering at tremendous cost to society and the environment.
  • musicale 5y ago
    I suppose another purpose is that they are a somewhat wasteful way to tip artists or (whoever). Kind of like getting your name written on a list of sponsors. Maybe.
• imtringued 5y ago
  An NFT is equivalent to a concert ticket or a deed of ownership. It's not the object itself. A concert ticket has value because you can go to a concert. A deed of ownership has value because the police protect your property. The real problem is that all these cryptocurrency enthusiasts think that you can just simulate everything digitally and live in some VR bubble where digital enforcement of contracts does not involve living beings. As soon as you have some service being provided in meatspace people just use regular databases because they are more convenient even if they are less secure and less decentralized.
• ttoinou 5y ago
  Pastel are building an alternative crypto for art : https://pastel.network/ https://pastel.network/ you can read their arguments against NFT : https://pastel.wiki/en/home https://pastel.wiki/en/home (ownership, data storage, centralization, ethereum, permissions, duplication of content, smart contracts, cost etc.)
• notinty 5y ago
  PoW is an awful use of energy with close-to-zero wealth created. Wealth in the original sense of the word. I see them as transferrable autographs, and would be down to own even small shares of my favourite artists' work, but their energy usage is untenable.
• shimmeringleaf 5y ago
  As an artist who has been able to survive the pandemic in part due to NFTs, honestly, nothing is that bad about them per se. That said there are a couple of points worth noting: - as an artist when I sell an NFT it's the equivalent of selling conceptual art, the recipient basically buys the "certificate of authenticity" that states that this work, together with the certificate of ownership constitutes the original work. This isn't too different from a certificate of authenticity often issued with a print or painting, just suitably modified to the digital space. I mean, there are a million Van Gogh reproductions, some even eerily well forged, but only the painting with its certificate is the original work. Doesn't mean the rest of the world can't enjoy the reproductions. - It helps me make ends meet as an artist and is a way for collectors to support that, especially important for digital artists whose works traditionally have suffered form being turned into static prints, for example. - the POW issue re: sustainability is an ugly one, thankfully there alternatives with POS, but it's important to remember not everyone can afford to be too principled, sometimes you have to go where people are offering what you need to pay this months rent, not where you'd like to go. - NFTs are massively hyped and have yet to be a better alternative to anything, that said they have helped a lot of artists survive the pandemic, they aren't a way of getting rich quick, or at least for 99% they aren't heh (but that's no different form the traditional art world).
  • boublepop 5y ago
    The intro reads like: As a salesman who’s been able to survive the pandemic thanks to selling multilevel marketing schemes, honestly nothing is bad about them per say. I don’t understand why it is that people have this inherent attitude that “it’s good when artists get money, no matter what”. I mean fair enough if you sell some art, but that’s not what NFTs are, they are risky investments bought because of the investment aspect. And while yes, as they say “in an up market there are no losers” it still might be the case that the losers will show if it collapses just like any Ponzi scheme or pyramid organization, and that will leave all the “suckers” at a loss. And I can’t agree that this is all ok simply because the snake oil salesmen where also artists this time around and not just selling certificates allowing others to sell water filters.
    • 5y ago
• slmjkdbtl 5y ago
  The idea of "ownership" NFT brings is a make-believe. I can believe I own anything, I can believe I own mona lisa, the only difference NFT brings is if other people agree, which is pure vanity and I can't care less. But I wouldn't call it bad, once in a lifetime cash grab opportunity where you can create "scarcity" from you home, with a story of why people should own, no need to really produce anything.
• lasereyes136 5y ago
  It isn't the NFTs that are bad per se but how they are promoted and sold that can be bad. Using an NFT for concert tickets makes sense. Using an NFT as a "certificate of authenticity" makes sense. Using NFTs in a video game or in a VR realm can make sense if it accurately describes what value the purchaser gets out of it. The problem becomes when you imply the NFT has a value it doesn't have like ownership of a work of art. Buying an NFT of digital art doesn't give you any real ownership rights. It only gives you the right to say "you own that NFT", which is the thing on the block chain and not the art, and potentially to sell that NFT in the future. That is where the scam feeling comes in because no or very few "certificates of authenticity" are worth a lot of money. So the idea that NFTs are inflated assets that will quickly lose value is very real. That said, we have stuff like that happen all of the time such as tulips or more recently Beanie Babies.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• iainctduncan 5y ago
  I'm a musician (when not being a software architect) and I'm somewhat shocked by the number of artists getting excited about NFTs and thinking this is the ticket out of stream-poverty. It's ridiculous - the NFT gives the consumer nothing. The whole reason vinyl has resurged is because music consumers want to own a thing. Something they can hold, and feel like they had some kind of transactional relationship with the maker. The NFT is emperor's clothes: they get no musical value at all from it. It's just a way of donating money with a bunch of environmental destruction rolled in for no good reason. I fear that many of my colleagues spending time chasing this are just going to have wasted a ton of time and money they could have spent making art, because the novelty will wear off pretty damned quick.
• marto1 5y ago
  Short answer: nothing by design, I believe, but as usual the devil is in the details. And there are a lot of details, it's a fairly complex ecosystem especially taken together with the larger crypto-sphere. To my knowledge, a lot of the issues arise from reckless resource allocation from retail investors/traders.
• root_axis 5y ago
  They're useless. You could use a digital signature to achieve all the benefits of an NFT without any of the blockchain waste. I don't think that makes them inherently "bad", but the industry hyping them up isn't good.
• funcDropShadow 5y ago
  Perhaps, reverse the question what is good about them? Which problem do they solve? If they have no advantage they are useless.