I mean, as the article mentions, you could store the image on the chain. Or at least a Hash of the image to prevent a bait-and-switch.
But it would cost too much of added gas fees and the average user wouldn't understand the difference.
But it would cost too much of added gas fees and the average user wouldn't understand the difference.
Reminder that this a poor line of thinking.
The average user of a smartphone has no idea how it works. The average user of software has no idea how their apps work. The average user of a blockchain doesn't know how it works, and they won't need to. This stuff gets abstracted out and developed enough to hide these details over time.
Some time ago I worked on a proof-of-concept service to enable users to mint their NFTs while abstracting away all the complexities. I decided to go the same route (link only, no hash, no nothing), as the cost for NFT minting are already very high as it is (see https://nuftu.com/pricing for current costs on the Ethereum blockchain).
If your goal was honestly to just buy art, why would "gas fees" matter? They only matter in a scenario involving wash trades and high rates of transactions involving small deltas in price.
you either pay around $70 to mint your NFT without caring about how and where your image is actually stored, or you pay $20,000 to upload your 500kb onto the blockchain (as the article mentions).