>Same as the paper in my wallet.
Except paper money is understood and used by all today to make transactions and thus useful.
Except paper money is understood and used by all today to make transactions and thus useful.
My point here was largely that I don't get where Stephenson was trying to argue. Even some of the points made in the slides are somewhat silly. If Jack's family could have sold their home to get enough money to build a new one and have food, they would have done so. But, of course, that wasn't the story. So trying to nitpick odd choices there are post-hoc justifications.
Are we just wanting to beat up on the silliness of scarcity in video game items? I mean, I'm all for that. It is silly. It is also silly that people are willing to pay money for the items. But that happens with or without market wide scarcity. (Just see the items in Candy Crush and its ilk.)
I could easily imagine a world where I get "crypto currency" that I can use across games. If only so that trying a new game doesn't mean starting from zero for those that did build up a lot of stuff in another one.
Except it doesn't.
Why would any company use a decentralized token to let you purchase things when they could simply make their own store currency/points and sell that instead? Look at all the F2P games that have in-game purchases, they all use points that are sold by the publisher that are bought with dollars because they make more money that way. There is no incentive to allow a decentralized currency you don’t control for in-game purchases.
There are so many hypotheticals and logical leaps here... This is not a useful argument anymore ... it's just you fantasizing.
I am out.
If there is something there I should treat more seriously, I'm game.
That's his thesis. Crypto is useful, but not for game items, because there is nothing honorable worth buying with real money. Just like how no one should buy a certificate that says "I bought this certificate from someone who is really good at chess." Unless you are a patron of the art of playing the game, I guess, but that doesn't seem to be use case in practice.