This argument has some flaws. So firstly, if nobody got on the bus, the number of buses on the route would be reduced, and depending on circumstances the route would be cancelled. Additionally, the weight of the passenger does slightly increase the power requirement. Ignoring that, while there's minimal direct effect of usage, ultimately the bus is only there due to demand.
Similarly, for block chains, mining only occurs when the thing being mined has value. NFTs would not be mined if people weren't using them. Therefore I would absolutely call them an ecological disaster.
> Similarly, for block chains, mining only occurs when the thing being mined has value. NFTs would not be mined if people weren't using them. Therefore I would absolutely call them an ecological disaster.
The point is that energy consumption due to mining on the Ethereum network does not scale with transaction count. So it does not matter if NFTs are issued ("minted") or not. They add no marginal energy cost in the mining process. That is why calling them an "ecological disaster" is a misnomer.
I’m less familiar with ETH than BTC but my understanding is that this is true:
1. Minting an NFT costs ETH in the form of “gas”
2. The miner who mines a block gets that ETH
Assuming both of these are true, each NFT minted on the ETH blockchain increases the amount they can profitability spend on energy in economic equilibrium.
Your understanding is correct, however ETH is moving sharply away from PoW to PoS systems which are significantly less demanding systems in terms of energy requirements. I believe the roadmap expects the full PoS transition to happen this year (a multistage launch that we are partway through).
On top of that, there's other more specialised NFT blockchains like flow which are becoming very popular.
What they're saying though is that if no one was using Ethereum (for NFTs or other purposes), there would be zero reason to mine them in the first place. It seems to follow to me that as demand goes up, the supply will increase in turn, since it's seen as a more attractive thing to mine.
Similarly, for block chains, mining only occurs when the thing being mined has value. NFTs would not be mined if people weren't using them. Therefore I would absolutely call them an ecological disaster.