NFT: I don’t get it

1. I don’t understand why artificial scarcity is necessary when natural scarcity is easy to make. In digital art, one has so many other ways to make one of something. This feels antithetical to the nature of what makes art negotiate its position in the world.

2. Completely un-enforceable, small off-license resales happening frequently. The large resale cases will involve force - art collectors inflate the value of a piece for tax purposes, so artists can’t see that appreciation reward them anyway. So it doesn’t really protect artists.

3. I love editions! I buy digital music and games all the time. Editions are a property of the medium. Artists can make more people feel something by scale. Is scarcity enjoyable? Intimacy of the first shows by a musician or artist definitely is. Does it serve the art? Not really

4. I’m going strictly by example here, but all NFT work I’ve seen until now has an extremely particular vibe. Mainstream, low emotional reach, not a shred of aim towards canon. This doesn’t feel like a movement, it feels a lot like a genre I don’t love. https://twitter.com/omershapira/status/1357186163124146181?s=20

5. Environmental impact. It’s too lazy to brush it off when @memotv did thorough enough research on the current trajectory of this wave.

Participating in this trend in this time and place feels like watching “Last Days Of Pompeii” in Pompeii.

http://cryptoart.wtf 

Defensive responses I’m getting are along the lines of “the earth problem will go away” and “it does generate value, through complicated market dynamics which haven’t happened yet, but are sure to make the art I bought/sold valuable”. I can’t discount either, but am unconvinced

I second Kyle's goals and reservations here. The art world and the entrepreneurs around it can do so much better, and artists and audiences deserve that much better. https://twitter.com/kcimc/status/1358539668531253248?s=20