I would say that the killer app currently is decentralised finance, lending and trading for example on the chain. The second killer app is NFTs, basically the exchange of art on the chain.
NFTs aren’t exclusively art. For example, I previously worked at https://unlock-protocol.com/ which uses NFTs to signify membership
Art is probably the worst use-case for NFT. NFT work well for memberships, tickets, virtual land in games, etc. For art, not so much.
It doesn't solve ownership: any one else can "own" the same piece of art, it's only the NFT that is unique. It doesn't solve scarcity: the author can make more copies and wrap them into other NFTs. It doesn't solve authenticity: any one can wrap existing art into an NFT and sell it.
Basically the only thing NFT art solve is anteriority and possibly authorship: you can prove that you made a piece of art before a certain date, and that you published it first.
But...
Right now, Etheriums soaring 'gas' prices are basically freezing new entrants into the market. The cost of 'minting' a token on the blockchain right now - say an image or animation on rarible.com, is enormous. Worse, the gas cost of purchasing an NFT can be triple the sale price. It's the equivalent of a varying, unpredictable rate of VAT in the hundreds of percent. This is having a knock on effect on all the NFT markets. Maybe it can be solved by Etherium 2.0, but right now Ether isn't fit for purpose for NFTs. Tying the cost of smart contract 'gas' to the value of the digital currency made this inevitable.
Article you linked the artists issue is that he couldn't find a market for his art. Which kind of misses the point.
"Then I asked around if anyone wanted to buy it. The boys in the groupchat weren't interested. Neither were any of my twitter followers. Damn."
Sure you could get lucky with being early into a highly speculative market, but by and large this is like patreon or kickstarter or anything else online. If there's a potential market for what you're making or doing, it's a new (and potentially lucrative) way to tap into it. It doesn't generate a new demand for work that doesn't have (or can't generate) an audience on its own. NFTs aren't a form of advertising, certainly not a particularly effective one.
Also the artist initially used Zora (which I've never heard of), rather than Rarible or Opensea, or Mintable or Snark or any of the better known open markets.
On rarible he set his royalties to 25% (rather than the usual 10%) which obviously discourages speculative investment. He also set the cost of his first art piece to 1 ETH! Crazy high for an unknown artist.
The article kind of seems like a snarky joke, but if it is one I'm not sure what the punchline is, given he really did spend the money and really does seem to want to sell the NFTs. I think it's more likely a case of irony employed as a defence mechanism.
We have someone who self confesses he doesn't understand the market, making a remix piece quickly and half assedly, selling it at a high rate across multiple markets, without an audience or any interest in what is popular there. I mean I get it, who wants to miss the gold rush? But it's not a useful barometer of NFTs.
Currently all the real money is being made by selective services who primarily work with digital artists who have an existing following, or make work they think will reach an audience - sites like niftygateway.com or superrare.co
The work that's selling well is generally excellent. And sure, there is something inherently ridiculous in the idea of 'owning' a piece of digital art. But no more so that owning a numbered print or piece of video art by a renowned artist, or hell a cardigan owned by Kurt Cobain. All of which have real, established and ongoing value.
There's this story from a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26196027
I'm not sure whether it's a good sign or a bad sign. On one hand it shows NFTs being serious because there's a huge ($500+k) transaction behind it. On the other hand it shows how frothy the market is given how someone just dropped $500k for a few hundred bits.
NFT for gaming is going to be huge industry eg pro-gamers could sell their character skins same way now eg basketball players sell their jerseys or you could import that Hearthstone deck to complete new game.
How would this work in a way that takes gas/fees into consideration?
For the second: Just go with gumroad or Paypal or whatnot.
Your points just prove, that there's no need for blockchain after all.
But yeah, it would be nice if you could set a fixed amount per button, like 10 Cent for an article or something like that.