For example, some artists on Ethereum are deploying their own token contracts[1], without the need for a distribution platform like Hicetnunc, SuperRare, etc. Once minted, these tokens can be traded on a secondary marketplace such as OpenSea (which may not have taken part in the initial distribution). If those secondary markets fail, the source of truth still lies in the blockchain, and the tokens can still be traded via any new marketplaces that emerge, or via smart contract queries through blockchain explorers like Etherscan, or even via one's own command-line (the web merely acts as a thin interface over these distributed endpoints).
I do agree that artists on Tezos are becoming too centralized to Hicetnunc (compared to, say, NFTs on Ethereum, which tend to be very diverse), but I believe this to be a solvable problem[2].
[1] - https://www.deafbeef.com/
[2] - https://twitter.com/mattdesl/status/1412713480893960195
So what value does a distributed, anonymized ledger add, when the artists are the central authority who determine what is and isn't authentic? In the end, the value comes from the artist saying "I made this, not an impostor", which is the same as any physical artwork in history.
Do people just want to own art without being burdened by the ownership of physical goods? That sounds rather irrational even compared to normal art trades.
To your second point: much of today's art is not manifested by a single physical artefact. Conceptual art has been around for a long time; ownership of conceptual art is not new[1], but the advent of blockchain gives a new vehicle and distribution mechanism for it, in particular digital and software art.
[1] - https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-conceptual-art...
Is there any advantage over a traditional certificate signed by PKI? I'd say the risk of X.509 PKI in its entirety disappearing is significantly lower than the risk of any individual blockchain startup failing. (How's that for decentralised redundancy!)
> To your second point: much of today's art is not manifested by a single physical artefact. Conceptual art has been around for a long time; ownership of conceptual art is not new[1] but the advent of blockchain gives a new vehicle and distribution mechanism for it, in particular digital and software art.
So we're back to hype for the sake of hype, detached from any technical merit.
But, if you were to create a PKI-enabled digital art marketplace that is able to meet the same decentralized structure and benefits of NFT technology, without the need for a distributed ledger and tokenization, I'm sure many artists and creators would welcome that.