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I'll be interested to read the article that actually addresses the title of this linked article. I feel like comparing digital art to digital media like books

I'll be interested to read the article that actually addresses the title of this linked article. I feel like comparing digital art to digital media like books and music is a bit apples to oranges. Additionally, the 2nd hand market for books and music is pretty bottomed out so I think it's a fair assumption that if a blockchain marketplace actually takes off over just pirating cracked copies, then the price of 2nd hand digital media would be begin to bottom out. So, given that one can pirate an ebook fairly easily and there's still a market for ebooks, is a 2nd hand marketplace for digital nft media a valid concern?

usrbinbash 5y ago
The point is, there is no such thing as a "2nd hand digital asset". 2nd hand exists for physical items only, because they are subject to wear&tear, they degrade, and copying them means creating something new from scratch that didn't exist before...a copy of a wardrobe is a new wardrobe that happens to look the same as another one. And if someone sells me his old wardrobe, then he no longer has it. The same isn't true for digital information. A file can be copied 10 times, 10000 times or 10E10 times, it doesn't matter...the original is not degraded in the process, and all copies are exactly the same and the same as the original. And if A sends the file to B, A can still have a copy of the file, indistinguishable from the one B now has.
- ImportOllie 5y ago
  Wear & Tear is a good point, along with the inconvenience of selling physical goods, and the burden of having too many physical goods. As well as the applicability, the author raises another point which is when you're finished with your digital media, why hold onto it? Especially on the assumption you can just buy it back for what you sold it for or less. I do wonder though whether all of this sits within a paradigm that needn't be the one that plays out. I suppose my questions around the subject are... are we saying that a 2nd marketplace for digital media such as books, films and music shouldn't/won't exist because if it did, it would devastatingly disrupt digital capitalism? Could there be a paradigm where we can have a 2nd hand marketplace? I'm particularly interested to observe how the digital fashion space evolves. Major fashion brands are engaging with NFTs and digital wardrobes. Which like digital art (and unlike books/films?) lend themselves well to being sold in limited runs, can be seasonal and could be useful... So I could see being a workable market for a digital 2nd hand market, outside the hyped up beanie-baby-esque investor marketplace that's dominating the nft landscape right now.
  - egypturnash 5y ago
    when you're finished with your digital media, why hold onto it? Have you heard of this little site called Spotify? It streams music instead of selling it. It’s pretty obscure, but it’s got a few competitors. Something with the even more absurd name of Youtube Music? They run on a subscription basis, or just throw ads at you if you don’t wanna pay. There’s a few sites like that for movies and TV shows, too.
    - ImportOllie 5y ago
      Sure, why own anything digital when you can stream or pirate?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    > Could there be a paradigm where we can have a 2nd hand marketplace? For items that can be copied identically for basically nothing and never degrade? The only reason we even still have a first hand market for these things is that we want to compensate the producers of the work who still need to earn money to put food on the table. To do that we use the ridiculous concept of "intellectual property" to allow those producers to work within a system not designed for a post-scarcity space. I cannot conceive of a 'second hand' market ever making sense here without just piling on even more perverse concepts.
    - ImportOllie 5y ago
      Thanks for your reply. If artificial scarcity is perverse, does that mean also mean things like limited art print runs are also perverse? Because it seems to me an artist who has the potential to print there work unlimited times but chooses to set the price at X for N prints would fall into that. But then, either because it's been accepted as a thing or otherwise, it's a common practice and personally, i've not seen it as a negative.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        > If artificial scarcity is perverse, does that mean also mean things like limited art print runs are also perverse? Yes, especially if the prints are basically free to produce. Artificial scarcity is bullshit we only tolerate because our economic system is built on scarcity. It's a hack and I would rather not encourage it. What is the point in digital anything if we're just going to limit it like it were a physical good?

usrbinbash 5y ago

The point is, there is no such thing as a "2nd hand digital asset". 2nd hand exists for physical items only, because they are subject to wear&tear, they degrade, and copying them means creating something new from scratch that didn't exist before...a copy of a wardrobe is a new wardrobe that happens to look the same as another one. And if someone sells me his old wardrobe, then he no longer has it. The same isn't true for digital information. A file can be copied 10 times, 10000 times or 10E10 times, it doesn't matter...the original is not degraded in the process, and all copies are exactly the same and the same as the original. And if A sends the file to B, A can still have a copy of the file, indistinguishable from the one B now has.

ImportOllie 5y ago
Wear & Tear is a good point, along with the inconvenience of selling physical goods, and the burden of having too many physical goods. As well as the applicability, the author raises another point which is when you're finished with your digital media, why hold onto it? Especially on the assumption you can just buy it back for what you sold it for or less. I do wonder though whether all of this sits within a paradigm that needn't be the one that plays out. I suppose my questions around the subject are... are we saying that a 2nd marketplace for digital media such as books, films and music shouldn't/won't exist because if it did, it would devastatingly disrupt digital capitalism? Could there be a paradigm where we can have a 2nd hand marketplace? I'm particularly interested to observe how the digital fashion space evolves. Major fashion brands are engaging with NFTs and digital wardrobes. Which like digital art (and unlike books/films?) lend themselves well to being sold in limited runs, can be seasonal and could be useful... So I could see being a workable market for a digital 2nd hand market, outside the hyped up beanie-baby-esque investor marketplace that's dominating the nft landscape right now.
- egypturnash 5y ago
  when you're finished with your digital media, why hold onto it? Have you heard of this little site called Spotify? It streams music instead of selling it. It’s pretty obscure, but it’s got a few competitors. Something with the even more absurd name of Youtube Music? They run on a subscription basis, or just throw ads at you if you don’t wanna pay. There’s a few sites like that for movies and TV shows, too.
  - ImportOllie 5y ago
    Sure, why own anything digital when you can stream or pirate?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  > Could there be a paradigm where we can have a 2nd hand marketplace? For items that can be copied identically for basically nothing and never degrade? The only reason we even still have a first hand market for these things is that we want to compensate the producers of the work who still need to earn money to put food on the table. To do that we use the ridiculous concept of "intellectual property" to allow those producers to work within a system not designed for a post-scarcity space. I cannot conceive of a 'second hand' market ever making sense here without just piling on even more perverse concepts.
  - ImportOllie 5y ago
    Thanks for your reply. If artificial scarcity is perverse, does that mean also mean things like limited art print runs are also perverse? Because it seems to me an artist who has the potential to print there work unlimited times but chooses to set the price at X for N prints would fall into that. But then, either because it's been accepted as a thing or otherwise, it's a common practice and personally, i've not seen it as a negative.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      > If artificial scarcity is perverse, does that mean also mean things like limited art print runs are also perverse? Yes, especially if the prints are basically free to produce. Artificial scarcity is bullshit we only tolerate because our economic system is built on scarcity. It's a hack and I would rather not encourage it. What is the point in digital anything if we're just going to limit it like it were a physical good?