Thanks, and I appreciate your thoughtful response!

- With the Reddit example, you're pointing out how NFTs and digital property shines in comparison to physical property. Specifically, you can trace the history of any NFT or token on the blockchain. HN could choose to only trust NFT holders who are one hop away from the origin, i.e. NFTs that were directly granted by Reddit. HN would thus be ignoring any moderator NFT that's been transferred or sold.

As for whether or not Reddit mods are trustworthy, that's a moot point, as it's just a contrived example. There are infinite possibilities, and it's doubtful that I'm going to think of a the best use cases, just as it was doubtful that an internet pundit in 1993 was going to think up the best websites. But a better example might be, let's say FAANG companies grant NFTs to senior engineers. Perhaps StackOverflow might want to show that status as a badge next to user accounts.

Yes, it's possible to do this now, but there is little incentive to, because these digital goods suck for the most part. Because digital goods aren't portable, they require the development of N × M propriety API calls for anyone apps or services to use them. Or in your case, HN mods would have to create a Reddit account and monitor it for messages. Total pain in the ass. We do see APIs used often regardless, despite the pain. It's hard not to imagine that use cases and creativity increase as a result of the tech getting easier.

- If Lyft wanted to allow employees to trade or sell perks, they'd have to create a marketplace for this, build features to support all of it, all for users to register accounts, etc. It'd be a lot of work. And it likely wouldn't do well, because it'd be a small silo'd market. So it's not worth the effort.

If Lyft instead distributed perks as NFTs, that's it. That's all they'd have to do. The blockchain would take care of the rest, as NFTs are automatically portable and sellable and tradable to anyone on the internet, without Lyft needing to lift a finger build some proprietary market connected to its databases.

Just because Lyft retains control of who does and doesn't get the perk doesn't affect much re:decentralization. The point of decentralization is to allow us to own our digital property that we control rather than that companies control, not to force companies and apps to lose all power in every other respect. Lyft can't delete your NFT or stop you from selling/trading it, and that's it. That's the goal. The rest is fine. It's the same in the real world: if I buy a ticket to a sporting event, it doesn't mean the stadium can't deny me entry or throw me out if I get drunk.

- Yes, games don't tend to share digital goods today, for the same reason websites don't: There's little consumer demand, because digital goods aren't useful, because they require N × M API requests to achieve portability + because there's no true consumer ownership.

And again, it doesn't matter if g1 or g2 want to make their own rules and changes. That's perfectly fine, and doesn't make digital property useless. It happens with real-world property, too. I had a Google Glass early on, and at first everyone loved it, but after a few weeks bars and restaurants banned me from coming in with them on. No big deal.

What you're pointing out are indeed problems, but they aren't problems that are going to stop proliferation and adoption of this new technology. It's similar to when the web was new, and pundits criticized it for being a hodgepodge of mediocre information that was difficult to sort through. Okay sure, that was true and it was a problem. But it didn't stop the web from spreading. It just resulted in the birth of Google, a $2T company that solve this problem. And social networks, which let you sort information by the people who you know/follow based on your personal connections or their popularity.

- You could argue that the most popular current use case (speculating on art and collectibles) are a Ponzi scheme I suppose. But the other use cases I proposed seem quite useful despite the minor problems pointed out, and it's hard not to imagine there will be many creative use cases in the future. Again, who could've predicted Airbnb or Uber or TikTok in 1995?