11 ms·

When the Stagnation Goes Virtual

95 points by adharmad 5y ago

avaer 5y ago
If you feel the same way after reading the article -- that an actual metaverse _would_ be cool, and it doesn't need to be Zuckerberg's dystopia, I encourage you to do your own research and find one of the thousand companies that agrees and help them out. In the right corners, it really does feel like "web 2.0" all over again -- and I mean that in the best way possible, because "web 2.0" set the course of internet technology for a decade.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  > "web 2.0" set the course of internet technology for a decade oh and how did that turn out?
- matkoniecz 5y ago
  Which uses of metaverse would be useful/entertaining? And so worthwhile that supporting some company would be good use of time and money?
  - dale_glass 5y ago
    To me it's useful/entertaining in the ways forums and chats are, plus some additional features on top of that. Eg, you can talk to people, but in addition to that you have a collaborative 3D environment with positional audio where you can script, make games or do other stuff. Recently a group using our project put up a Christmas Carol VR play, and the results were most impressive. https://vircadia.com/ https://vircadia.com/ -- it's an open source project
    - matkoniecz 5y ago
      > in addition to that you have a collaborative 3D environment with positional audio where you can script, make games or do other stuff. Well, I see no significant benefit here over a simple list. Not saying that there is none but I am not convinced to do anything with it until I see some actual use for it (and FB is not involved in any way whatsoever).
      - dale_glass 5y ago
        > Well, I see no significant benefit here over a simple list. I don't think I understand? > Not saying that there is none but I am not convinced to do anything with it until I see some actual use for it (and FB is not involved in any way whatsoever) FB is not involved in any way whatsoever in our project. It's not a new idea really. Second Life is close to two decades old at this point, and there's a long tradition of repurposing existing systems/games to other ends.
- pjc50 5y ago
  Such as the longstanding occupier of this space, Second Life? As people often point out on twitter, we're already in metaverse 1.0. The cyberpunk continuously connected world. It turns out that the 3D surface view of that isn't so necessary or even comfortable for a lot of users. But the connectedness is.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    Second Life was a lot of fun and sparked a lot of amazing creativity. I still miss it. And I know it is still around, but I think because of some changes it is not the same - also maybe because the people are missing. But there are lessons to be learned and hopefully it can be improved upon. One issue for me was the difficulty of creating a decent looking avatar, and other interface issues. Something NFTs could be poised to solve. (Yes, you could already buy avatars in SL, I know).
    - pjc50 5y ago
      > difficulty of creating a decent looking avatar, and other interface issues How does burning a chunk of electricity on NFTs actually help this? In detail please.
      - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
        It helps create an industry where people can earn money for designing avatars. That already happened in Second Life, but a more open system could also allow designers to use better tools, and of course make it more worthwhile to begin with. Both for designers as well as for users, as there are more things they can do with their avatar. I don't think burning electricity is the important part.
        meheleventyone 5y ago
        A more open system doesn't need NFTs it needs standards for interoperability of avatars.
- kevingadd 5y ago
  I spent a while working on one of the real early metaverses (IMVU) and we already figured out things like compensating artists for their work, enabling derivative works, and properly compensating everyone. We also let people show off art and create custom spaces to experience with their friends, without having to pay gas fees. The absolutely miserable quality of stuff like decentraland combined with the high prices is pathetic, honestly. Tons of ordinary people have been experiencing the real metaverse for years on Second Life, IMVU, etc.
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  You seem knowledgeable in the field - I'm specifically looking to apply NFT tech to pop-sci publishing and debate, do you know of a group working on that or something adjacent?
  - andrepd 5y ago
    >I'm specifically looking to apply NFT tech to No
Barrin92 5y ago
"All week in New York, the myriad token-gated parties and meetups applied social filters based on digital ownership. Tickets to these events could only be purchased once you connected your crypto wallet and proved that you held the correct NFTs. At any given party, the coolest people in the room were always the “whales,” semi-mythical figures who own over 1000 ETH ($3 million at the time of writing) in digital assets. Rumors of exclusive “whale dinners” trickled down through the ranks of attendees, who jockeyed in anonymous group chats for passwords to invite-only events." This honestly makes me physically cringe. It's not even the worst aspects of new money, it's people LARPing as the nouveau riche. Imagine sitting in a room full of adults with status anxiety who compare their 20 dollar deviantart ape drawings they bought with their entire savings.
- pjc50 5y ago
  2020s looking suspiciously like the 1920s in so many ways. Great Internet Gatsby.
  - marcodave 5y ago
    1910s had the spanish flu, we have (had??) the COVID-19, so...yep
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  Case shuffled into the nearest door and watched the other passengers as he rode. A couple of attendees were approaching him, strictly wannabes, they had maybe 200 ETH between them in deviantart apes. He flew away, somewhere in the twisting mazes of the market there would be exclusivity, only the billionaires with digitally executed works at hand to interact with. When a work was digitally executed it was put into a room that functioned as a 3d scanner, then the room's heat was turned up high enough to vaporize iron. The 3d scan of the work would be saved to an NFT complete with digital proof of its absolute destruction. Case was currently looking for the Gauguin, which, after its execution was now the most expensive NFT in the world, estimated worth, two billion dollars. Bezos would pay double that.
  - 5y ago
reactspa 5y ago
"one man stumbled drunk through the party, wearing a tablet displaying an NFT cat cartoon around his neck. He was grabbing strangers for stability and telling them how owning his Cool Cat “changed my life.” “Before this cat, I was a loser,” he said to anyone who would listen, “but now, because of this community, my life means something." Not. Sustainable.
- pjc50 5y ago
  https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft/cool-cats https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft/cool-cats : man's been given a sense of purpose and belonging, and it only cost him thirty-seven thousand dollars? I'm sure we could all write whole essays on the atomisation of society by reducing it to transactions, and the desperate attempts of people to buy their way back in. On the other hand, this is hardly a new phenomenon, it's every nouveau riche all the way back to Elizabethan sumptuary laws and beyond.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - arethuza 5y ago
    Reminds me of this quote from Michael Lewis: "Yet another hedge fund manager explained Icelandic banking to me this way: you have a dog, and I have a cat. We agree that each is worth a billion dollars. You sell me the dog for a billion, and I sell you the cat for a billion. Now we are no longer pet owners but Icelandic banks, with a billion dollars in new assets."
  - cableshaft 5y ago
    > https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft/cool-cats https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft/cool-cats : man's been given a sense of purpose and belonging, and it only cost him thirty-seven thousand dollars? "Priced at 0.06 ETH each, Cool Cats first sold 300 NFTs, before lowering the price to 0.02 per mint. It took about eight hours to sell out, and in the days to come, the project would begin to explode across the NFT ecosystem."[1] They might have bought one at mint, which at ~$2200 ETH prices in early July 2021, 0.02 ETH would have been around $44. $44 on something that is now worth a minimum of $37k in less than six months can be life-changing. And if he got a more rare one it could potentially sell for 50-300 ETH, or 180k-1.1million USD. Considering I've heard people say that $10k in student loan forgiveness would be life-changing for them, I'd say that's pretty life-changing. [1]: https://nftnow.com/guides/cool-cats-guide https://nftnow.com/guides/cool-cats-guide
rootsudo 5y ago
Well, I missed this memo. Wow.
jerrygoyal 5y ago
If anyone's wondering, entry ticket for their 3 days event starts from ~600$ (of course you can pay in crypto).
DavidPiper 5y ago
> ... the NFT community is not interested in remaining a subculture. NFT community leaders believe that they are just early to understand that the future lies in virtual worlds, and that normies will embrace the metaverse in good time. An alternative explanation is that they _are_ the normies who have bought into the techno-grift in exchange for social status in a small community of believers. > Like, right now, if I have a sword in a video game, I only have it in one game. But if we had a metaverse, then I could take it anywhere, and it would still be mine. And maybe it’s like, the only sword in the whole world that could kill a certain monster. That would be really cool. The idea that game companies will allow players to share resources between games with NFTs is both technically questionable and financially absurd. --- If you can spare the time, I highly recommend watching Line Goes Up - The Problem with NFTs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g . It's a bit long-winded, and I suspect I'm preaching to the choir regardless, but it's worth it.
- wedn3sday 5y ago
  I second your recommendation. I've been following the Folding Ideas channel for a while, and deeply enjoy his long form video format. Where most online videos like to do a brief touch on a topic, covering the surface level detail before moving on, the guy behind that channel goes deeeeep in a way I find very satisfying.
- netsharc 5y ago
  I suppose if (insert luxury fashion label here, let's say... Gucci) has an online store on Zuckverse, and also has one on TimCookVerse (where the plebian green bubble people don't come), they would allow owners of virtual Gucci bags free copies of their virtual bag on 2 different platforms. Yeah, it's a ridiculous idea of the future, where people who currently walk around with $5000 purses ($20 for the utility of "it carries my things", $4800 for the brand name) will in the future be pixels on your VR googles walking around with $5000 pixel representation of purses, which you can right click, click "Properties" and confirm the digital certificate of. I've so far been an NFT-ignorant, but are those NFT exchanges the ones who want to be the digital certificate authorities? Couldn't Zuck or Cook just roll out their own?
PedroBatista 5y ago
Every generation has these cultural blips. It’s always a small subgroup of a particular generation ( the rest are the “normies” I guess). Maybe this one is extra lame but like any teenage drama, it’s a phase.. And other people always monetized this, from bar/club owners, baseball card printers, fidget spinners moguls and some hopeful Zuckerbergs now.
astoor 5y ago
"This time is different. It’s not just speculation, it’s about community." (from article) "Let me assure you that this is not one of those shady pyramid schemes you've been hearing about. No sir. Our model is the trapezoid!" (from The Simpsons) But seriously, I can imagine that being in such a community would be all fun and games when there is a sufficient flow of new community members to keep the prices going up and so to keep making the existing community members richer and richer. However, at some point the music will stop and the party will come to an end, in which case what will happen to the sense of community then? And perhaps more importantly what will be its wider impact on society? If that community just forms a relatively small segment then the fallout could be contained, but if it sucks in an entire generation, or worse still an entire country, it could conceivably get physical. See also the collapse of pyramid schemes in Albania in 1997: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War .
kuu 5y ago
I really enjoyed the article. It gives insights from inside that I couldn't understand from outside. The sense of community and the idea of getting some reputation (even if it only makes sense inside that community, as any reputation) helps me to understand some of the motivations of the people that are inside (I know is not the single and maybe not even the main one). Thanks OP for sharing!
ausbah 5y ago
>In the NFT community, we are witnessing the logical conclusion of a generation that is so alienated, so profoundly unfulfilled, that they are considering abandoning the physical world altogether. the comparison to 1960s counterculture as a form of escapism for (presumably) Gen-Z is laughable. how is something counterculture when backed by the likes of billionaires, VC firms, and the gaggle of techno grifters that make up the space. any sense of "community" or "sticking it to the man" is to make money by getting others to buy your speculative assets for something that doesn't even exist yet I love the writing of the piece, but found this idea not even believable for a second
- jker 5y ago
  Agreed, it’s some skilled and enjoyable writing here. But I think the author was suggesting that the NFT “movement” is actually different than the counterculture of the 1960s, in that it’s rooted in financial aspiration and capitalism, rather than rejecting it in favor of meaning.
- adrianN 5y ago
  I don't think it's possible today for a subculture to exist without immediately becoming the target of marketing departments everywhere. If more than two people share a common interest, somebody will try to sell them stuff.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    That's true, but in the case of NFTs, the whole concept is rooted in highly financialised digital capitalism. This isn't businesses jumping on the bandwagon, the business bandwagon is itself the trend.
- daydream 5y ago
  > how is something counterculture when backed by the likes of billionaires, VC firms, and the gaggle of techno grifters I think that’s part of the point - even the very idea of counterculture has been co-opted.
  - 5y ago
fvold 5y ago
My main problem with this "you can own a video game asset!" argument is that you just don't. You own a token on the blockchain that currently points to something. Tomorrow, it could point to something else. Let's take the "only sword that can kill a certain monster" thing, and have a look at the parts involved. The parts are: - The token on the blockchain - The art assets of the sword - The stats on the sword (including what it can and can't kill) - The list of games where this sword is a valid item Of those, the NFT will only let you own or in any way control the first point. Let's say I get The Sword Of Dragon Murder in game A, and it is currently also accepted in game B. Woohoo, metaverse! The company in control of game B will control what it looks and sounds like in game B, and they will also control what it does there. Maybe it only kills dragons there, but the game has no dragons? It doesn't even need to be called the same. For a joke, they could have it display as "The Toothpick of King Arthur" and using it will have your character do a "pick your teeth" animation. Zero dragon murders to be had, no matter what you paid for the NFT. Even worse is that you can't even control what the item does in the game you got it from. At any time, they can change the art assets so it looks like any ordinary sword, and remove the dragon murdering stats. We even see kind of that in games now: Power creep. When the next expansion comes out, your current gear is likely to be outdated, and you have to grind for the new stuff (or "microtransact" yourself up to date), and it doesn't matter if it's an NFT or a regular entry in a regular database, because your old stuff is still crap in the new area. In your favorite MMO, take a five year old "best item" and try to sell it on the auction house. You won't get "best item" sort of prices. Why would that magically change with NFTs? Why are they exempt from this? It seems obvious to me that the people talking about NFTs and secondary markets in games have not played any MMO for any length of time, or they'd know about nerfing and expansions.
- acdha 5y ago
  > It seems obvious to me that the people talking about NFTs and secondary markets in games have not played any MMO for any length of time, or they'd know about nerfing and expansions. The weirdest part is that origin story for Ethereum is literally what you're talking about but somehow everyone is pitching that as a solution despite it clearly not being capable of preventing the same thing from happening again: > I happily played World of Warcraft during 2007-2010, but one day Blizzard removed the damage component from my beloved warlock's Siphon Life spell. I cried myself to sleep, and on that day I realized what horrors centralized services can bring. I soon decided to quit. (https://about.me/vitalik_buterin https://about.me/vitalik_buterin)
verisimi 5y ago
Serious Question: how is NFT anything but Intellectual Property rights on steroids? It seems the ideal method to allow the elites/billionaires to track everything they own, in the online world?
- jker 5y ago
  Serious answer: It isn’t intellectual, there’s no property, and you have no rights.
  - verisimi 5y ago
    Don't you think that it can be used as a basis to establish ownership of all those assets that are online though? Eg, I could see the basis for an automated billing for NFT + smart contracts for assets I have used online. I'm not sure where you are with property ownership - perhaps this is a reference to Proudhon, or perhaps a reference to the legal fiction that we use to navigate this system? Whatever the case, given time, the legal system would likely end up supporting NFT ownership + usage fees I think.
- falcolas 5y ago
  I think that the (biggest) problem with NFTs is that they grant no rights that are recognized by the governments of the world - the people who can help enforce your ownership. Worse, they require no rights to create. You don't have to be a copyright holder to create an NFT, you just need a URI. Your ownership of an NFT implies nothing about your ownership of the referenced object in real life (physical or digital).
- danaris 5y ago
  My take is: This is what some people (particularly in those groups) want them to be, so that they can continue to parlay wealth into exclusive access to all kinds of things even in a digital world where all scarcity is artificial. However, as sibling comments note, they're actually very bad at it, because despite all the ballyhoo about decentralization, making that kind of thing work requires cooperation from centralized authorities.
pmontra 5y ago
> Say that we actually give up on reality and fully shift our attention to virtual worlds. How would you find a real person to marry? Do we still need houses, or just dark rooms with computers? Do we make babies in test tubes? Do we still have to exercise? Does it matter? It matters because somebody still has to build and peovision datacenters and defend them and the borders of the country. If (reduction to absurdity) nobody ever leaves home it's going to be easy to pillage infrastructure or even people. Furthermore our bodies don't react well at sitting down all day long, every single day. Does anybody have that kind of health data about Japanese hikikomori? And of course extinction.
marcodave 5y ago
Wow. Just...wow. Some things in the article just seemed right up satire; the blonde dressed-up lawyer who left her job pursuing [buzzword]-[buzzword]ing ? the drunk guy who now has a meaning in life by obtaining the latest [buzzword] ? the crowd cheering crazy at the mention of the [buzzword] ? it all seems too... weird and alien to me; I'm not a boomer, but I'm almost 40; I've cheered at the age of digitalization and I was publicly derided on my views of the internet in the mid-90s. Now... is this how older people felt in the 80s-90s, when faced with news about the digital era? or the idea that internet will replace this-and-that? How similar is this to the late-90s dot-com craze? I bet my ass off that at the time they had early-adopter parties like the one in the article.
- bearjaws 5y ago
  For real, seems like a director got ready to make a movie about this event. Can't help but feel hes looking at the event through rose colored glasses as it was 4 years ago now.
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    This article is from a couple of weeks ago?
- cableshaft 5y ago
  In the same boat as you age-wise, but it was probably kind of similar. As young as I was back then, and just knowing a hint of HTML, I still managed to stumble upon people trying to make their own dot-com and hearing pitches for websites that were just as pie-in-the-sky as some NFT projects. Like I remember one back then that had an idea (I don't even think they had the tech, just an idea) for a VR headset and an omnidirectional treadmill and acted like they were sitting on a goldmine in the next 2-3 years and if I would just kindly make a website for them (for free) I'd get in on the ground floor. Clearly their idea never materialized, or at least never found success.
mooreds 5y ago
This was a great essay! Two great excerpts: > He cut me off. “[NFTs are] not art. Don’t call it art. That’s offensive to real art.” This paragraph really drove home to me what NFTs are. They're another club, like having a blog or a TheFacebook account used to be. > I didn’t tell him what I was actually thinking, which is that I suddenly could not imagine myself having children anymore, if I would just have to watch them slouch away into the confines of digital life. If I do have children, they will likely grow up in a world where living online is normal, or at least a viable option. I think everyone who considers having or has kids worries about what kind of world their kids will grow up in. I know I have. The things we endure ourselves shouldn't be inflicted on our kids. That said, a partially digital life that is available by choice (rather than being inflicted on someone) seems pretty awesome in some ways. Look at how mailing lists have helped foster knowledge sharing and community, or how youtube has made it so much easier to learn skills, and imagine that in a more accessible format.

95 points by adharmad 5y ago

If you feel the same way after reading the article -- that an actual metaverse _would_ be cool, and it doesn't need to be Zuckerberg's dystopia, I encourage you to do your own research and find one of the thousand companies that agrees and help them out. In the right corners, it really does feel like "web 2.0" all over again -- and I mean that in the best way possible, because "web 2.0" set the course of internet technology for a decade.

giraffe_lady 5y ago
> "web 2.0" set the course of internet technology for a decade oh and how did that turn out?
matkoniecz 5y ago
Which uses of metaverse would be useful/entertaining? And so worthwhile that supporting some company would be good use of time and money?
- dale_glass 5y ago
  To me it's useful/entertaining in the ways forums and chats are, plus some additional features on top of that. Eg, you can talk to people, but in addition to that you have a collaborative 3D environment with positional audio where you can script, make games or do other stuff. Recently a group using our project put up a Christmas Carol VR play, and the results were most impressive. https://vircadia.com/ https://vircadia.com/ -- it's an open source project
  - matkoniecz 5y ago
    > in addition to that you have a collaborative 3D environment with positional audio where you can script, make games or do other stuff. Well, I see no significant benefit here over a simple list. Not saying that there is none but I am not convinced to do anything with it until I see some actual use for it (and FB is not involved in any way whatsoever).
    - dale_glass 5y ago
      > Well, I see no significant benefit here over a simple list. I don't think I understand? > Not saying that there is none but I am not convinced to do anything with it until I see some actual use for it (and FB is not involved in any way whatsoever) FB is not involved in any way whatsoever in our project. It's not a new idea really. Second Life is close to two decades old at this point, and there's a long tradition of repurposing existing systems/games to other ends.
pjc50 5y ago
Such as the longstanding occupier of this space, Second Life? As people often point out on twitter, we're already in metaverse 1.0. The cyberpunk continuously connected world. It turns out that the 3D surface view of that isn't so necessary or even comfortable for a lot of users. But the connectedness is.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  Second Life was a lot of fun and sparked a lot of amazing creativity. I still miss it. And I know it is still around, but I think because of some changes it is not the same - also maybe because the people are missing. But there are lessons to be learned and hopefully it can be improved upon. One issue for me was the difficulty of creating a decent looking avatar, and other interface issues. Something NFTs could be poised to solve. (Yes, you could already buy avatars in SL, I know).
  - pjc50 5y ago
    > difficulty of creating a decent looking avatar, and other interface issues How does burning a chunk of electricity on NFTs actually help this? In detail please.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      It helps create an industry where people can earn money for designing avatars. That already happened in Second Life, but a more open system could also allow designers to use better tools, and of course make it more worthwhile to begin with. Both for designers as well as for users, as there are more things they can do with their avatar. I don't think burning electricity is the important part.
      - meheleventyone 5y ago
        A more open system doesn't need NFTs it needs standards for interoperability of avatars.
kevingadd 5y ago
I spent a while working on one of the real early metaverses (IMVU) and we already figured out things like compensating artists for their work, enabling derivative works, and properly compensating everyone. We also let people show off art and create custom spaces to experience with their friends, without having to pay gas fees. The absolutely miserable quality of stuff like decentraland combined with the high prices is pathetic, honestly. Tons of ordinary people have been experiencing the real metaverse for years on Second Life, IMVU, etc.
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
You seem knowledgeable in the field - I'm specifically looking to apply NFT tech to pop-sci publishing and debate, do you know of a group working on that or something adjacent?
- andrepd 5y ago
  >I'm specifically looking to apply NFT tech to No

Barrin92 5y ago

"All week in New York, the myriad token-gated parties and meetups applied social filters based on digital ownership. Tickets to these events could only be purchased once you connected your crypto wallet and proved that you held the correct NFTs. At any given party, the coolest people in the room were always the “whales,” semi-mythical figures who own over 1000 ETH ($3 million at the time of writing) in digital assets. Rumors of exclusive “whale dinners” trickled down through the ranks of attendees, who jockeyed in anonymous group chats for passwords to invite-only events." This honestly makes me physically cringe. It's not even the worst aspects of new money, it's people LARPing as the nouveau riche. Imagine sitting in a room full of adults with status anxiety who compare their 20 dollar deviantart ape drawings they bought with their entire savings.

pjc50 5y ago
2020s looking suspiciously like the 1920s in so many ways. Great Internet Gatsby.
- marcodave 5y ago
  1910s had the spanish flu, we have (had??) the COVID-19, so...yep
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
Case shuffled into the nearest door and watched the other passengers as he rode. A couple of attendees were approaching him, strictly wannabes, they had maybe 200 ETH between them in deviantart apes. He flew away, somewhere in the twisting mazes of the market there would be exclusivity, only the billionaires with digitally executed works at hand to interact with. When a work was digitally executed it was put into a room that functioned as a 3d scanner, then the room's heat was turned up high enough to vaporize iron. The 3d scan of the work would be saved to an NFT complete with digital proof of its absolute destruction. Case was currently looking for the Gauguin, which, after its execution was now the most expensive NFT in the world, estimated worth, two billion dollars. Bezos would pay double that.
- 5y ago

reactspa 5y ago

"one man stumbled drunk through the party, wearing a tablet displaying an NFT cat cartoon around his neck. He was grabbing strangers for stability and telling them how owning his Cool Cat “changed my life.” “Before this cat, I was a loser,” he said to anyone who would listen, “but now, because of this community, my life means something." Not. Sustainable.

pjc50 5y ago
https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft/cool-cats https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft/cool-cats : man's been given a sense of purpose and belonging, and it only cost him thirty-seven thousand dollars? I'm sure we could all write whole essays on the atomisation of society by reducing it to transactions, and the desperate attempts of people to buy their way back in. On the other hand, this is hardly a new phenomenon, it's every nouveau riche all the way back to Elizabethan sumptuary laws and beyond.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- arethuza 5y ago
  Reminds me of this quote from Michael Lewis: "Yet another hedge fund manager explained Icelandic banking to me this way: you have a dog, and I have a cat. We agree that each is worth a billion dollars. You sell me the dog for a billion, and I sell you the cat for a billion. Now we are no longer pet owners but Icelandic banks, with a billion dollars in new assets."
- cableshaft 5y ago
  > https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft/cool-cats https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft/cool-cats : man's been given a sense of purpose and belonging, and it only cost him thirty-seven thousand dollars? "Priced at 0.06 ETH each, Cool Cats first sold 300 NFTs, before lowering the price to 0.02 per mint. It took about eight hours to sell out, and in the days to come, the project would begin to explode across the NFT ecosystem."[1] They might have bought one at mint, which at ~$2200 ETH prices in early July 2021, 0.02 ETH would have been around $44. $44 on something that is now worth a minimum of $37k in less than six months can be life-changing. And if he got a more rare one it could potentially sell for 50-300 ETH, or 180k-1.1million USD. Considering I've heard people say that $10k in student loan forgiveness would be life-changing for them, I'd say that's pretty life-changing. [1]: https://nftnow.com/guides/cool-cats-guide https://nftnow.com/guides/cool-cats-guide

rootsudo 5y ago

Well, I missed this memo. Wow.

jerrygoyal 5y ago

If anyone's wondering, entry ticket for their 3 days event starts from ~600$ (of course you can pay in crypto).

DavidPiper 5y ago

> ... the NFT community is not interested in remaining a subculture. NFT community leaders believe that they are just early to understand that the future lies in virtual worlds, and that normies will embrace the metaverse in good time. An alternative explanation is that they _are_ the normies who have bought into the techno-grift in exchange for social status in a small community of believers. > Like, right now, if I have a sword in a video game, I only have it in one game. But if we had a metaverse, then I could take it anywhere, and it would still be mine. And maybe it’s like, the only sword in the whole world that could kill a certain monster. That would be really cool. The idea that game companies will allow players to share resources between games with NFTs is both technically questionable and financially absurd. --- If you can spare the time, I highly recommend watching Line Goes Up - The Problem with NFTs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g . It's a bit long-winded, and I suspect I'm preaching to the choir regardless, but it's worth it.

wedn3sday 5y ago
I second your recommendation. I've been following the Folding Ideas channel for a while, and deeply enjoy his long form video format. Where most online videos like to do a brief touch on a topic, covering the surface level detail before moving on, the guy behind that channel goes deeeeep in a way I find very satisfying.
netsharc 5y ago
I suppose if (insert luxury fashion label here, let's say... Gucci) has an online store on Zuckverse, and also has one on TimCookVerse (where the plebian green bubble people don't come), they would allow owners of virtual Gucci bags free copies of their virtual bag on 2 different platforms. Yeah, it's a ridiculous idea of the future, where people who currently walk around with $5000 purses ($20 for the utility of "it carries my things", $4800 for the brand name) will in the future be pixels on your VR googles walking around with $5000 pixel representation of purses, which you can right click, click "Properties" and confirm the digital certificate of. I've so far been an NFT-ignorant, but are those NFT exchanges the ones who want to be the digital certificate authorities? Couldn't Zuck or Cook just roll out their own?

PedroBatista 5y ago

Every generation has these cultural blips. It’s always a small subgroup of a particular generation ( the rest are the “normies” I guess). Maybe this one is extra lame but like any teenage drama, it’s a phase.. And other people always monetized this, from bar/club owners, baseball card printers, fidget spinners moguls and some hopeful Zuckerbergs now.

astoor 5y ago

"This time is different. It’s not just speculation, it’s about community." (from article) "Let me assure you that this is not one of those shady pyramid schemes you've been hearing about. No sir. Our model is the trapezoid!" (from The Simpsons) But seriously, I can imagine that being in such a community would be all fun and games when there is a sufficient flow of new community members to keep the prices going up and so to keep making the existing community members richer and richer. However, at some point the music will stop and the party will come to an end, in which case what will happen to the sense of community then? And perhaps more importantly what will be its wider impact on society? If that community just forms a relatively small segment then the fallout could be contained, but if it sucks in an entire generation, or worse still an entire country, it could conceivably get physical. See also the collapse of pyramid schemes in Albania in 1997: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War .

kuu 5y ago

I really enjoyed the article. It gives insights from inside that I couldn't understand from outside. The sense of community and the idea of getting some reputation (even if it only makes sense inside that community, as any reputation) helps me to understand some of the motivations of the people that are inside (I know is not the single and maybe not even the main one). Thanks OP for sharing!

ausbah 5y ago

>In the NFT community, we are witnessing the logical conclusion of a generation that is so alienated, so profoundly unfulfilled, that they are considering abandoning the physical world altogether. the comparison to 1960s counterculture as a form of escapism for (presumably) Gen-Z is laughable. how is something counterculture when backed by the likes of billionaires, VC firms, and the gaggle of techno grifters that make up the space. any sense of "community" or "sticking it to the man" is to make money by getting others to buy your speculative assets for something that doesn't even exist yet I love the writing of the piece, but found this idea not even believable for a second

jker 5y ago
Agreed, it’s some skilled and enjoyable writing here. But I think the author was suggesting that the NFT “movement” is actually different than the counterculture of the 1960s, in that it’s rooted in financial aspiration and capitalism, rather than rejecting it in favor of meaning.
adrianN 5y ago
I don't think it's possible today for a subculture to exist without immediately becoming the target of marketing departments everywhere. If more than two people share a common interest, somebody will try to sell them stuff.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  That's true, but in the case of NFTs, the whole concept is rooted in highly financialised digital capitalism. This isn't businesses jumping on the bandwagon, the business bandwagon is itself the trend.
daydream 5y ago
> how is something counterculture when backed by the likes of billionaires, VC firms, and the gaggle of techno grifters I think that’s part of the point - even the very idea of counterculture has been co-opted.
- 5y ago

fvold 5y ago

My main problem with this "you can own a video game asset!" argument is that you just don't. You own a token on the blockchain that currently points to something. Tomorrow, it could point to something else. Let's take the "only sword that can kill a certain monster" thing, and have a look at the parts involved. The parts are: - The token on the blockchain - The art assets of the sword - The stats on the sword (including what it can and can't kill) - The list of games where this sword is a valid item Of those, the NFT will only let you own or in any way control the first point. Let's say I get The Sword Of Dragon Murder in game A, and it is currently also accepted in game B. Woohoo, metaverse! The company in control of game B will control what it looks and sounds like in game B, and they will also control what it does there. Maybe it only kills dragons there, but the game has no dragons? It doesn't even need to be called the same. For a joke, they could have it display as "The Toothpick of King Arthur" and using it will have your character do a "pick your teeth" animation. Zero dragon murders to be had, no matter what you paid for the NFT. Even worse is that you can't even control what the item does in the game you got it from. At any time, they can change the art assets so it looks like any ordinary sword, and remove the dragon murdering stats. We even see kind of that in games now: Power creep. When the next expansion comes out, your current gear is likely to be outdated, and you have to grind for the new stuff (or "microtransact" yourself up to date), and it doesn't matter if it's an NFT or a regular entry in a regular database, because your old stuff is still crap in the new area. In your favorite MMO, take a five year old "best item" and try to sell it on the auction house. You won't get "best item" sort of prices. Why would that magically change with NFTs? Why are they exempt from this? It seems obvious to me that the people talking about NFTs and secondary markets in games have not played any MMO for any length of time, or they'd know about nerfing and expansions.

acdha 5y ago
> It seems obvious to me that the people talking about NFTs and secondary markets in games have not played any MMO for any length of time, or they'd know about nerfing and expansions. The weirdest part is that origin story for Ethereum is literally what you're talking about but somehow everyone is pitching that as a solution despite it clearly not being capable of preventing the same thing from happening again: > I happily played World of Warcraft during 2007-2010, but one day Blizzard removed the damage component from my beloved warlock's Siphon Life spell. I cried myself to sleep, and on that day I realized what horrors centralized services can bring. I soon decided to quit. (https://about.me/vitalik_buterin https://about.me/vitalik_buterin)

verisimi 5y ago

Serious Question: how is NFT anything but Intellectual Property rights on steroids? It seems the ideal method to allow the elites/billionaires to track everything they own, in the online world?

jker 5y ago
Serious answer: It isn’t intellectual, there’s no property, and you have no rights.
- verisimi 5y ago
  Don't you think that it can be used as a basis to establish ownership of all those assets that are online though? Eg, I could see the basis for an automated billing for NFT + smart contracts for assets I have used online. I'm not sure where you are with property ownership - perhaps this is a reference to Proudhon, or perhaps a reference to the legal fiction that we use to navigate this system? Whatever the case, given time, the legal system would likely end up supporting NFT ownership + usage fees I think.
falcolas 5y ago
I think that the (biggest) problem with NFTs is that they grant no rights that are recognized by the governments of the world - the people who can help enforce your ownership. Worse, they require no rights to create. You don't have to be a copyright holder to create an NFT, you just need a URI. Your ownership of an NFT implies nothing about your ownership of the referenced object in real life (physical or digital).
danaris 5y ago
My take is: This is what some people (particularly in those groups) want them to be, so that they can continue to parlay wealth into exclusive access to all kinds of things even in a digital world where all scarcity is artificial. However, as sibling comments note, they're actually very bad at it, because despite all the ballyhoo about decentralization, making that kind of thing work requires cooperation from centralized authorities.

pmontra 5y ago

> Say that we actually give up on reality and fully shift our attention to virtual worlds. How would you find a real person to marry? Do we still need houses, or just dark rooms with computers? Do we make babies in test tubes? Do we still have to exercise? Does it matter? It matters because somebody still has to build and peovision datacenters and defend them and the borders of the country. If (reduction to absurdity) nobody ever leaves home it's going to be easy to pillage infrastructure or even people. Furthermore our bodies don't react well at sitting down all day long, every single day. Does anybody have that kind of health data about Japanese hikikomori? And of course extinction.

marcodave 5y ago

Wow. Just...wow. Some things in the article just seemed right up satire; the blonde dressed-up lawyer who left her job pursuing [buzzword]-[buzzword]ing ? the drunk guy who now has a meaning in life by obtaining the latest [buzzword] ? the crowd cheering crazy at the mention of the [buzzword] ? it all seems too... weird and alien to me; I'm not a boomer, but I'm almost 40; I've cheered at the age of digitalization and I was publicly derided on my views of the internet in the mid-90s. Now... is this how older people felt in the 80s-90s, when faced with news about the digital era? or the idea that internet will replace this-and-that? How similar is this to the late-90s dot-com craze? I bet my ass off that at the time they had early-adopter parties like the one in the article.

bearjaws 5y ago
For real, seems like a director got ready to make a movie about this event. Can't help but feel hes looking at the event through rose colored glasses as it was 4 years ago now.
- pcthrowaway 5y ago
  This article is from a couple of weeks ago?
cableshaft 5y ago
In the same boat as you age-wise, but it was probably kind of similar. As young as I was back then, and just knowing a hint of HTML, I still managed to stumble upon people trying to make their own dot-com and hearing pitches for websites that were just as pie-in-the-sky as some NFT projects. Like I remember one back then that had an idea (I don't even think they had the tech, just an idea) for a VR headset and an omnidirectional treadmill and acted like they were sitting on a goldmine in the next 2-3 years and if I would just kindly make a website for them (for free) I'd get in on the ground floor. Clearly their idea never materialized, or at least never found success.

mooreds 5y ago

This was a great essay! Two great excerpts: > He cut me off. “[NFTs are] not art. Don’t call it art. That’s offensive to real art.” This paragraph really drove home to me what NFTs are. They're another club, like having a blog or a TheFacebook account used to be. > I didn’t tell him what I was actually thinking, which is that I suddenly could not imagine myself having children anymore, if I would just have to watch them slouch away into the confines of digital life. If I do have children, they will likely grow up in a world where living online is normal, or at least a viable option. I think everyone who considers having or has kids worries about what kind of world their kids will grow up in. I know I have. The things we endure ourselves shouldn't be inflicted on our kids. That said, a partially digital life that is available by choice (rather than being inflicted on someone) seems pretty awesome in some ways. Look at how mailing lists have helped foster knowledge sharing and community, or how youtube has made it so much easier to learn skills, and imagine that in a more accessible format.