Also the card will stay in this world for a long time if protected from weather and light, I assume, where as the NFT needs to be constantly kept alive by "mining". I agree it's similar, but it's also different. And interesting. At least to me. :) Also value is relative, of course. I mean: One man's collectible is another woman's trash. It probably needs a certain shared set of beliefs/illusions to agree that something like that has value.
I think the latter is responsible for the overwhelming share of the value of a sports card, and the former is only a historical coincidence that creating rare and difficult to counterfeit items was only practical by fabricating physical items.
for why the NFT premise feels so [preposterously] wrong to many including myself.
Here is one idea, for how we intuit value:
As a fraction, in which non-fungibility (~= "authenticity") is the denominator; nominal value (whatever that is, a function of context etc.) is the numerator.
In the sports card example, a physical object with a provenance has intrinsic guarantees of uniqueness.
Low uniqueness means high intuited value.
In the NFT case, a hash has non-intrinsic guarantees. They are provable; they are not perceptible.
Uncertain uniqueness means low intuited value.
It's not that it's not provably unique; it's that if we don't perceive it, no one cares.
Perceptible and provable for us monkeys is a serious and real difference.
That's the general idea. The edges are full of corners, for sure, e.g. a counterfeit or reproduction can be exacting enough to create a new game for us to play (I am reminded of the rabbit hole of reproduction collectible watches...)... the quest of authenticity has a fractal quality in the case of mass-produced but limited goods (what edition number? What pressing? The one with the misaligned cyan?)...
...but in the 80% case, I think it's simply, we monkeys like objects; ideas remain a hard sell.
My own belief is this is so deeply baked into the relationship between our world modeling that it will not be overcome through culture.
A lemma might be, non-fungibility is less important than materiality.
Authenticity for fungible goods, like gold, is persistent, in part because they are fungible. It's their material (perceptible provability) that reassures us.
I believe this is rooted in intuitions about the scale and durability of consensus on value containers, which appears until recently to have been in the long view winner-take-all, in the case of things without pragmatic use-value.
Even for physical objects like paintings or sports cards, the matter of provenance is extraordinarily difficult to ascertain. Counterfeiters are really good at what they do, and determining authenticity of very valuable items is presumably impossible for all but a few experts, to the extent that what you’re buying can really be thought of as a physical object along with some easily-verifiable (often through digital means!) claim of authenticity from a trusted group. In cases like this it’s pretty silly to place such emphasis on the provenance of the physical object itself!
Love, truth, justice, honor, patriotism, status, etc.
So long as there is consensus that a thing exists (tangibly or intangibly) and is desirable, there will be demand.
"Look how many people paid money for this/look how much money was paid for this, it must be worth that money! The actual efficacy of any product sold is secondary to the amount of money I've been paid"
I understand the 'tom brady rookie card' argument but it falls apart in the digital world. A digital image of Tom Brady as a rookie is worth nothing. A print of that digital image is worth less than cost of printing it. The value of the card is that its official merchandise of limited run with no way to create 'new' old cards.
Stop pretending NFTs are physical items, stop pretending they can't be infinitely reproduced.
Yeah but let's be clear it's often just because 2 people say they agree it has value, and for all we know they're often laundering money. I can look at a motorcycle and understand why it has value to someone even though I wouldn't buy one myself even for a penny. I'm afraid I'm unable to do the same with NFTs and cans of feces from an artist.
It seems like a blockchain-based technology that only works when backed by the threat of lawsuits combines the worst aspects of the art market and the cryptocurrency market.
Physical art, which people have historically paid for, is much more difficult to credibly reproduce than NFTs.
Edited to add:
Moreover if the argument in favor of NFTs is that they're not worse than what preceded them, then what's the point of introducing them? If the same problems in the traditional art market (especially for digital works) are recapitulated with NFTs, I don't see the point.
For most of these famous digital art NFTs, the digital work itself is widely distributed online. But of course there’s only one of each NFT.
I'd argue that everything you listed can be reproduced, almost identically. But there's no value in doing so since it is not the original or was never authorized by the creator. Why does this change all of a sudden once we go digital? Is it because it's so much easier to reproduce something that originates digitally?
So the work has no value in and of itself? It seems to me like an unauthorized reproduction of a work of art has just as much intrinsic value as the same bits labeled "original". It evokes the same emotions and forms the same memories.
I don't think this is what you actually believe about art; you probably have your "investor" hat on. In that sense you are right, there is far less liquid value in an unauthorized reproduction than there is in an authentic original. But the actual value of the work in the eyes or ears of a beholder is the same regardless of the legal, historical, or social status of a reproduction. There are probably lots of great works in art collections that owners and viewers believe are original but are in fact illegal counterfeits. But a Rembrandt is still a Rembrandt, and Bach is still Bach, even if the source is The.Well.Tempered.Clavier-xxxWAREZLORDxxx-BEST.QUALITY.torrent.
Suppose I'm an artist that releases a limited digital run of an album and that NFTs are used to attribute ownership of the digital release. Would this have more, equal, or less value than an artist doing the same thing but with a physical limited run album release?
The actual music content can be pirated and made available just the same, whether or not it was physical or digital. The cost of the physical goods themselves is negligible. However, I feel like many people argue that the digital release via NFTs would be worth less because all you have to show for your ownership is a digital token, and not some sort of limited release physical item.
Surely it depends on how much you like the music?
> However, I feel like many people argue that the digital release via NFTs would be worth less because all you have to show for your ownership is a digital token
Correct. I value my vinyl copy of "Live Dead" by The Grateful Dead because I have had it for nearly 50 years, have played it countless times, rolled joints on it, and even like the scratches. It's also something that cannot be exactly copied, given current technology.
Having said that, most of my music is on MP3s, but the idea that referring to them via some block chain crap will give them "value" is just silly.
> Having said that, most of my music is on MP3s, but the idea that referring to them via some block chain crap will give them "value" is just silly.
I think the point here is that verifying ownership of digital goods is hard, because they are so easily reproduced identically. Blockchain technology and NFTs are one way to solve this problem because it allows you to have a verifiable chain of ownership which cannot be modified or faked. (ie. if a music release was as simple as the artist distributing an MP3 to 10 people, it would be impossible to tell who actually owned the "original" MP3).
Is it unreasonable to think that in 50 years, someone might look back at the limited digital release they got of their favourite album as fondly as you look back on your Live Dead record, and then pass that digital ownership down to their next of kin? It's a concept that's been explored time and time again physically but seems weirdly uncharted for anything digital.
But not identically. I can get a very nice print of the Mona Lisa, with very accurate colours. But it isn't at all an exact copy of the original. And I defy you to produce anything like a near-exact copy of a specific slice of bread.
The trick is to buy some art at a reasonable price, store it in a dark warehouse for a couple of years, then anonymously buy it from yourself at an exorbitant price through shell companies with dirty money.
This feels like a pyramid scheme. What makes it different?
The problem there is that culture, social conventions, shared fictions and so on can be manipulated/twisted/adapted to some agenda or interest, and that includes what we feel valuable or not, without minding of what is really behind (like with bitcoins and similar). Once we took this route, all kinds of mirages can appear. And they can vanish into thin air as fast as they appeared.
It is. My Google-fu is failing me but there was a famous art dealer in the early part of the 20th century who promised that he would buy back the pieces he sold at least for the price the buyer originally paid less some minuscule percentage if the buyer could not sell the pieces to someone else. It made paints he sold significantly go up in price. He died. Buyers tried to get his estate to pay for the paintings and failed.