> The NFT, inherently at least, doesn't give you the right to distribute or anything of the sense. It really obfuscates the concept of ownership into some weird hippie mentality that boils down to, "How can you own anything man?"

I don't think you know what's going on here. An NFT for art sponsorship is usually just bragging rights. You're provably the first sponsor of a thing. Yay you.

But if you see something that says 'own' or 'purchase' and you don't think the court could enforce it - like the Brooklyn bridge, or the moon, then don't buy it. Insisting that every NFT be worthwhile and honest would be like insisting that all contracts be perfect and all parties must fully agree - unworkably unrealistic.

But for a comparison to software, I'd rather buy an NFT license that obviously couldn't convey ownership than I would a cardboard box that appeared to contain a product but only had the installation media on it and had a hidden EULA before purchase.

> [discussion of legal quandaries in the copyright space.]

Yeah, totes. Nobody said otherwise. So don't buy an NFT purporting to give you royalties to the work - it can't be enforced on-chain and is therefore a stupid crypto investment.

> Sponsoring the artist is also an extremely weak argument. What's the difference between this and buying a $20 printed tshirt of their art? Or a poster? Or a pdf of their comic? Or their mp3? Except for the fact I get something.

How about a webcomic where you get the output anyways, and can print it if you want? Why sponsor the artist at all if you don't get anything. But once you get past that...

Anyways, producing a book is expensive and the artist may not have the time, or I may not want the book, and they only get "normal profits" from it. If I gift them money they get it all, without any work or prep. So donation and patronage are very valuable.

> This whole thing of, "Yea, but patreon/apple/amazon/paypal/merchantServices/platformX gets a cut out of it."

Without adding any value for me and by requiring the artist to go to the trouble of running a campaign. I have nothing against Patreon as a concept, for when an artist wants to recruit a following around a new book or something. But I don't buy collectibles anymore so this doesn't meet my needs.

> Because places to purchase/convert crypto and NFT don't exist nor take a cut themselves?

The artist can do it themselves for free. And they can generally spend their crypto easily online. Buy supplies with it, etc, without specifically offramping into currency first.

> Are you going to do that for an artist to buy their stuff?

If my artist didn't know how to mint NFTs and wanted to, yes I'd do that for them.

> Or is a stamp too much of a "cut"?

If I want to send mail, then no - it doesn't even cover the costs. But if I don't want to send mail and had to buy an unwanted stamp for some reason it would be.

> Just like paypal and patreon not dealing with the debit/credit card companies for free since their data centers and employees are all volunteer anyways!

The big value those companies play is in reducing and protecting against risk. But it's my crypto already, and I know the artist's address, so there's 0% counterparty or technological risk. So what do I need them for? They're an unwanted stamp in this context.

> Do you work for free? What do you do? I guarantee the same argument can be applied to your job and you would foam at the mouth about how you deserve to be paid.

Nope. Many people do not use products I work on, or DCs I manage, or anything. Why would I care? They don't cost me anything. Similarly, me not using Paypal doesn't cost them anything.

> I mean come the fuck on. This is ridiculous.

Why are you so mad about it though?

> Concert tickets? What does it do differently? "Verifies ownership". How does it do it differently than the 2 to 3 sets of ID numbers on the ticket and/or putting someone's name on it and verifying by picture ID?

Apparently you've never heard of counterfeiting. And why do I want to go through the trouble of giving them my name just so they can make my ticket harder to use?

> A piss poor MySQL db and terrible PHP accomplishes what NFT can do, minus the computational power.

No. Use a non-PoW chain and the cost to everyone, transaction fees, computation, etc, is less than $.05. And the piss-poor MySQL DB can't prove to me that my ticket is unique so it doesn't solve the counterfeiting problem.

> That and it's not "the courts" that don't let you scalp tickets. It's the venue. The agreement to buying a ticket either lets you or restricts you from scalping, which was created by the venue or whoever is performing, but normally it's the venue's rules.

Why would I care who, or how, they decided to create user-hostile rules? They don't serve me so I won't miss them.

But, if you as a venue wanted a transfer fee you could enforce it more easily then by suing resellers. It'd happen automatically and risk free. So once they get their fee they won't need to care how I transfer it, giving me the ability to easily buy a bunch of tickets for friends without having to know who exactly is coming, or whatever.

Even if they encumber the NFTs they'll be no worse than paper tickets in any way.

> not give a shit about an obscure 3rd party system that grants no value to them or the customer?

Except that it provides value to them and the customer.

No tickets to print, no defrauded customers with fake tickets complaining, no worries about scalpers eating your lunch... If they do place a bunch of restrictions I'm no worse off, and likely they wouldn't because with a more transparent market they could just arrange a Dutch auction and capture the money themselves in one simple step.

> Why NFT has ruffled my feathers so much is honestly weird. It has this Twilight Zone feel to it. The question is, wtf is the punchline at the end? I know it's not going to be pretty. Crypto in general led us to this weird new religion of tech.

There are people who dream of replacing fiat currencies. Most everyone else just wants to send money to friends, play games, etc. Don't let the ideologues freak you out.

> Or maybe it's the worship of "disruption" regardless of purpose or benefit? Disruption for the sake of disruption and regardless of consequences.

Disrupting companies is pretty safe. If everyone switched from Paypal they'd go bankrupt but nobody would be hurt - employees would get new jobs and life would go on. Disrupting the entire currency system is dangerous but is potentially required to avoid corruption.

> The biggest difference, crypto tech is energy consuming. Nuclear tech was rapid energy producing.

And interestingly, both have a large crowd of detractors who don't understand the tech or the risk/reward tradeoff but want them gone.