I'm no NFT cheerleader, but I do bemoan the failure of yet another attempt to provide artists with revenue.
NFTs were always daft, but the fiction, as fiction often does, spoke to a real need.
NFTs were always daft, but the fiction, as fiction often does, spoke to a real need.
It's also easier than ever now for an independent artist to make money. Patreon, Fanbox, Skeb have vastly simplified the logistics of getting money for your work. Promotion through social media is free, though time-consuming.
The problem is the same as it always was: artists want to focus on creating art, and not running a business. If I told you I was going to make a software company, with the expectation of a livable salary, but spend $0 on sales, marketing, or customer support, you'd call me an idiot, because there's a lot more to a software business than churning out code. Similarly, there's a lot more to making a living as an artist than drawing pictures or creating music.
Ironically, NFTs were most successful with people who already understood all this. Unscrupulous people like Steve Aoki aggressively marketed their own NFTs using their existing brand power and made a hefty sum, while your dime-a-dozen 10k Twitter follower artist got nothing.
Very condescending and, at the same time, not true at all. Many existing artists did much better in revenue than ever in the way of getting paid for their craft during the rise of NFTs, there were many spaces where artists would brag about their success and help onboard others into the space, often paying their transaction fees.
For many of the small audience artists it's very sad the momentum faded, and the spring of generative AI doesn't help them either.
Again, my concern is for the artists who were briefly given hope, however false.
For context, this book is helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Artist-Creators-Struggling-Bill...
It literally describes an effort by Meta to put NFTs to use for artists.
Again, decay.
Of course no one was going to pay $1000 for landscape_digital_painting.png which you can get a dime a million on dall-e.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. Artists today have more ways of getting paid than ever, but it is still a buyers market.
If DALL-E emerged before NFTs, I don't think we would have seen them gain any traction _at all_.
NFTs and the guys pushing them were only out to hurt artists and exploit them, and nothing else. If they weren't out to scam them, they were out there just stealing the art.
It was not "a nice idea" and the fact that people still try to tie them to "but what about the artists" narrative is a disgrace. I'm sorry, but there is no "but" here.
Yes something for artists would be nice, everyone agrees. NFTs were never that, not even a little bit. It was not "an attempt to provide artists with revenue", it was an attempt to use artists for revenue.
You make a difference between what you say, and the people cheering for NFTs, but the whole "yeah but what if it works" or "yeah but wouldn't it be nice if..." angle is exactly the type of crowbar all the cryptocurrency/NFT scammers used and still use to stay relevant.
This is dead in the water in any app, anyways. Apple charges 30% fee on all in-app NFT sales, and on top of that Apple ToS prohibits any “functional” use of NFT tech in their apps. [1]
[1] https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1584609845570768897?s=2...