> Ugh. How do I check with the artist when I don't know who the artist is?!

If you have interacted in the NFT space, you'll see that consensus on who the artist is forms from the community. Many projects are posted in areas with the artist information there. These are GUI additions that the marketplaces and websites post. Linked Twitter accounts you name it. The NFT itself can also have metadata about the artist, and the image itself can also have metadata or EXIF data about the artist. The address on the blockchain which created the NFT code can also be linked to a particular person by that own person's admission at some point in the past or simultaneously. So all is possible, a centralized component, or a decentralized component but none of the semantics matter: it is possible to determine, unless it isn't, and if it isn't, maybe don't trade that piece of work? Really fascinating to me that this obligation has been shoved onto the technology instead of personal responsibility, I'm more so curious where other people talk about NFTs this way because I don't know where the confusion is coming from.

> So you solve one half of the equation (lineage and transfer of ownership) but not the other (origination ownership)?

The NFT standard does not prescribe these things, but for you it is possible to get these things, or to just simply ignore the ones that don't give you the assurances you hope for. It's a consumer issue, you have the choice of buying things that fit your criteria. Not an artist issue, not an NFT concept issue.

> Why on earth would an artist want to pursue that model if both aren't true?

Because the first half of the equation is light years ahead of the alternative already. The most attractive thing to artists is the royalties concept. This is also attractive to the communities of art purchasers, who want to support living artists but found it extremely hard to determine value and community beforehand or in the other art markets. Outside of NFTs, artists have to be celebrities or have hundreds of years of provenance to have a collective conscious on their value. It is extremely limiting and hard to maintain. Now it is very easy, so overnight things have changed.

It is useful to know that the ratified NFT standards do not have a way to send royalties after a trade, and the marketplaces themselves do that on the NFT's behalf (ie. when an NFT is traded within a marketplace, royalty information is read from the NFT metadata and funds are sent to the original creator. when an NFT is traded outside of a marketplace no royalties are sent. Some people are working on that.)

Also its quite simple: many artists are broke and have no other marketable skills. many other artists have developed other marketable skills but would rather be doing art, if they could exchange time for food and shelter doing it. NFTs are an opportunity for them so they'll take what it provides and let consumers inherit what it provides, and not waiting around for another millennium for origination of ownership to be solved with telepathy (but its also very easy to include who should be the creator of the art depicted and the NFT issued, so I really wonder about what you are experiencing to better understand why you think this is an issue with the NFT space or the NFT concept). Both parties need to be sure they are understanding what they are trading and what they aren't.