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Washed Up (infrequently.org)
149 points by robin_reala on Jan 6, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 46 comments


I'm on Facebook because it's a good way to stay in touch with my 83 yr old mother and other scattered family. I posted the Cryptoland [1] video for a couple of my techie friends on there and made a comment about it.

Ever since I've been flooded with NFT advertisements on Facebook. None of these images are any good, which I can tell because I have no interest in saving them like I do with great art and photographs. They want me to pay $300 for a link to an ugly image that I don't even want to save to my hard drive, much less own a link to it on some random blockchain.

I've seen some weird human behavior in my 27 years on the internet, but this makes me worry about the future of the human race.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiHopGox5cU


Fools and their money have always been easily separated, even before there was money


That video is amazing.


Nobody seems to know if it's satire or for real. I was convinced it was a joke until the last part where the developers start talking about it like a real thing


Schrodinger's scam... Keeping people guessing makes the pumps and dumps bigger.


This article uses a tweet that identifies Makersplace hosting the beeple image, stating that one day they'll fold, and the image will be gone.

Somehow the author never mentions that, once Makersplace is gone, that image will stay up until IPFS goes away. Makersplace seems to be hosting a cached version of the image, but if you open up Brave Browser and go to ipfs://bafybeie6nurk3frh4dpxeocg3rlucqj75c22wqcxrd6feesyk4nyhlc4wa/ you'll see the preview image.

I'm not a web3/crypto maximalist by any means, but we can't have valid arguments if we don't even understand the ideas that underpin what we're criticizing.


Interesting that it's only a 1200x1200 jpeg. You can't even make a good print of that for your wall. What's the owner do who displays it? Do they have to contact Beeple directly for their hi-res image that he gives them other rights for making a single print or something?


IPFS only weakly matters here. If the party hosting the NFT image goes away, chances are high they were the only ones 'pinning' (hosting) it. Unless the internet archive / archive team gets in on this, that content, save for the most popular (most viewed) is just as likely to disappear.


Or you can pin the NFT you bought yourself. You don't expect to buy a painting and then leave it wherever and have it always exist.


I think part of the sell of NFT's is precisely that you shouldn't have to manage the asset yourself. It would be quite odd that there would be an expectation that every holder of an NFT had to arrange preservation of it themselves, it seems a bit self defeating from what it's being sold as.


That's not what I know NFTs to be. I know them to be receipts/provenance logs, not art storage.


This is an important point that demonstrates two things.

First, that if you really care about what you're buying, you'll make sure what it references points to a content hash and not a URL, and you'll pin it yourself.

And second, that if you have to store the image yourself that you paid for a pointer to, you've wasted your money.

I'm a fan of cryptocurrency, cryptography underlying the internet, even the concept of a one of a kind, non fungible token is interesting and I see how it could be useful. But all this web3 stuff and in particular the hype with which the NFT concept is being marketed to sell useless shit are things I'm not a fan of.


People literally do buy art this way, it's in storage and bought and remains in the same storage. Of course buying it comes with the expectation of paying rent. But in this case of NFTs this is actually a hidden implementation detail rather than something addressed up front.


People "buy" video games on steam, they "buy" films and tv shows and books from Amazon and they "buy" all sorts of things that we know technically implies a very weak definition of ownership. Explaining to people how the sausage is made doesn't seem to have stopped people buying sausages. I guess the question then becomes how do we warn people in a way that doesn't seem condescending and not just spouting tech trivia at them that they have little way of verifying themselves with their current understanding?

With so many nefarious actors in the crypto space it's very hard to argue against that level of "trust in large numbers". It definitely feels like an uphill battle when explaining to non tech friends about the implications of the system they are buying into. Moreso when brands they usually trust are also trying to peddle it.


If we wanted to reduce to the absurd, everything is impermanent. There's bit rot, atoms will decay, everything will fade (or perhaps another big-bang).

IMHO, regarding your point on ownership, is what kind of ownership do people want or expect with NFTs.

When I buy a book, a CD, a game or an Amazon movie, I buy it with the expectation to enjoy it for a period of time, I'm not really concerned[0] about lifetime permanence.

If I buy a work of art for millions, I'm probably more worried about permanence, maintenance, security and beign able to pass it down to someone.

NFTs seem to neither here or there in this subject.

[0] What I mean is, I _hope_ the Amazon movie will be available for many years, but I accept the potential loss as not really terrible.


When I buy a CD or book I certainly care about lifetime performance. That's part of the problem with overloading words like "buy."


The words "care" and "performance" are also overloaded too.

I buy the objects but I'm not putting sheets between the pages or building UV-blocking furniture to prevent paper yellowing. I might even give half of them to charity after a few years.

My point is that although I consider them "mine" I'm not too bothered because the investment is usually not that big. Otherwise I would be worried if they suddenly vanished into thin air like an NFT.


People "buy" video games on steam, they "buy" films and tv shows and books from Amazon and they "buy" all sorts of things that we know technically implies a very weak definition of ownership.

I think people understand that, and consequently they're reluctant to buy from new players in the market. Launching an app store or a digital content store is hard. People will only be customers when they believe there's a strong chance the store will survive for a long time. That's why there aren't many stores, and the ones that exist are generally from pretty massive corporations that have deep pockets.

NFTs try to be the same, with less chance of survival, but crucially they also claim that the decentralized nature of what they sell means tokens will last even if the seller goes bust. That's not a lie; the token will survive. What the token points to won't though. You may understand that and be happy with it, but if you're selling NFTs to people without explaining exactly what it is you're essentially running a scam by preying on people's ignorance of tech.


There's unambiguous utility in buying video games on steam and buying files and tv shows and books. You get to consume the content.

You can consume NFT content whether you buy it or not. You just get to brag that you're the original owner while everyone else is just a "filthy right-clicker".

It sounds ridiculous to me, sorry.


I don't disagree with you, but ...

There's a premium placed on first-edition hardcover books. The contents are identical to the trade paperback or the EPUB.

There's value attached to the original limited pressing of a vinyl record which has since been repressed, reissued on CD, and is now available for download (legally or otherwise) in digital form.

Consuming the media, in either example, is available to all. Possessing some marker of specialness is coveted. People are complicated.

NFTs are silly, but collectors are inherently silly if you choose to look at it that way.


There's a premium placed on first-edition hardcover books.

As a prolific watcher of the show Pawn Stars, I can tell you exactly why this is. Imagine the first edition of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. JK Rowling is an unknown author, the original run is comparatively very small and there's nothing special about the book so people read them which adds wear and tear and worse they sometimes throw them away! So you're left with very few pristine copies of that first edition. It's rare as hell and there's nothing you can do to make more of them.

Subsequent editions sell about 107 million copies. There are tens of millions of later editions in pristine copy. People bought them explicitly to collect them and put them in plastic containers. There are tons of them!

So that first edition has real scarcity. You can never make more. Can't say that about NFTs.

NFTs are silly, but collectors are inherently silly

I don't think this is what is happening at all. I think NFTs are a tax scam that cause them to sell for ridiculous $100,000+ prices and then regular people see that and think they can get rich by getting into NFTs. All the while not realizing the real deal is to dodge taxes and this NFT collector stuff is nonsense.


> So that first edition has real scarcity

Lots of things are scarce, but have no value. The value is in possessing a scarce and "authorized" representation of a popular thing.

> You can never make more. Can't say that about NFTs

Like any limited-edition thing, the promise is that there won't be more. You could absolutely forge a first-edition Harry Potter book. Someone probably has. And it would probably be more convincing than a "forged"/regenerated NFT. There has to be some trust in the official producer, and yes that's hard to come by in this space!

> I think NFTs are a tax scam

Well sure, like art or wine. But not all art or wine.


The value is in possessing a scarce and "authorized" representation of a popular thing.

The use of the word "authorized" seems artificial in this context. I agree with you on scarcity and popularity being a requirement. But authorized seems off. A first edition Harry Potter book isn't authorized, it's just real. Forgeries are just fake, they aren't "unauthorized".

Another thing I learned from Pawn Stars are that things that were manufactured for collecting often are valueless. Harry Potter was written for the purposes of telling a story. It became popular because many people enjoyed it. First editions of the book had a natural progression to scarcity and popularity. On the flip side, Disney manufacturers "collectibles" all the time but they often are worthless. NFTs seem to be manufactured for collecting. Will they be more popular than Beanie Babies ended up being?

Well sure, like art or wine. But not all art or wine.

I think all NFTs selling for large dollar amounts are for tax dodging.


Right, but that's a very different aspect of the argument. People don't buy games on steam because they want to own them, they buy them because they want to play them. The actual usage is the utility.


Right, but collectors don't play the limited edition vinyl pressing, or read the first-edition hardcover either. They "buy" it to "own" it.

You consume the more convenient/less valuable copies. The usage is commoditized, but the possession is exclusive.


It's so absurd this even needs to be explained!


> People "buy" video games on steam, they "buy" films and tv shows

I'd never thought about that! With the exception of physical books, places like Amazon can just yank whatever content from under you (web3 calls it a "rug pull"). Like the time they removed 1984: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18am...

I think we're only ok with "buying" jpgs because we're at the point of absurdity that almost anything we buy is actually rented today. So, thanks to SaaS businesses pushing this model, "buying" digital goods does seem like a natural progression.


I would like to think we are at peak absurdity but we probably have a lot of runway still ahead of us.


You reference beanie babies or tulips and describe how a speculative market detached the price from the actual value--so while the speculation was ongoing, some people made money, but when it collapsed, many lost money, and they were left with the actual value of the underlying thing.

For a tulip or beanie baby, you have a thing worth little. For an NFT, you have an entry in a ledger that no one pays attention to outside the context of the speculative market that's disappeared.

I've had success reminding older people of a company in the U.S. that was selling stars in the 1980s. You gave them cash, they gave you a certificate with unique stellar co-ordinates and a claim that you owned the star there. At the end of the day, you had a certificate, not a star, and no one would ever see the certificate as anything but a novelty, even if there was a brief moment when they were trading for stupid amounts.


There's a critical difference here in intent. When I buy a game on Steam, I want to play it once and then forget about it. Same for a book on a Kindle. People buying NFTs seem to hope for some permanent value instead.


This might be the best critique of Web3 I've read yet. Especially this: "Having rejected the foundational protocols of the web, these systems sail a parallel plane, connecting only over "bridges" and "gateways" which, in turn, give those who run the gateways incredible centralised power."


I’m noticing a lot of similarities between the NFT phenomenon and the auction house retro game phenomenon: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A


My understanding is that web3 refers to switching from an advertising-based web which is what we have today to users paying micropayments to get access to content.

To people that believe in it, blockchain and cryptocurrency enables this. They claim that existing payment providers cannot handle large numbers of payments of $0.002. They further claim that this will take over everything, not just the web and that even cloud providers will go out of business as people make micropayments to others to store files and the like.

I think it's all ridiculous but after a lot of researching this is my current understanding. Appreciate any corrections.


This is a part of it, and I think it is fantastic to enable these sorts of useful features, but the idea that the entire web is going to run this way, incentivizing things for the sake of it, and the huge push by marketing people to sell mostly trash really irks me.

The big selling points are censorship resistance, distributed access, direct middleman free payment for services all sound great. Unfortunately most of what we are getting right now doesn't solve any of these problems and is rent seeking garbage.


But not all web is advertising-based today.


> "web3" partisans often cast a return to nameless, unmemorable addresses as a revolution when their systems rely on either the same centralising mechanisms or seek to re-create them under new (less transparent, equally rent-seeking) management.

Well, yes? ENS is a GoDaddy-like domain provider on blockchain with all the root keys to themselves. At least that has a use-case unlike the NFT JPEGs.

You can explain it right in front of their face and they will not listen since they are driven by the price of a cryptocurrency. So the time that they only listen is when it is too late and they whole market collapses.

But here we are once again, unable to stop it or ban it since everyone still 'loves' talking about blockchain, web3, cryptocurrencies again and again on HN even after it collapses. [0] If you think web3 is useless, maybe you should ignore the hype and watch it crash instead?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29769291


I have better things to do than spend my time watching useless things.


You shouldn't have commented here then if you didn't care. I did tell you to ignore the thread, but here we are.

Those 'useless things' have me money as I already sold some at more than $60k months ago and now I watch everyone hodling at $68k whilst shorting it from $59k.

So, yes I am happily watching more money come in as it drops lower.


Since web3 can be anything, for me it is web1: federation, open protocols, individual autonomy, few ads. I'm pretty sure VCs are interested in none of that. They made web1 into web2, after all.


I wonder if we had a similar reaction and controversy over the adoption of money versus the prior convention of barter, way back in pre-history.


If you are really curious about this, may I suggest you read an anthropologists investigation on economic systems in pre-historic (and early historic) times?

Graeber's book Debt the first 5000 years might be a good starting point.


added to my audible library thank you


We still have people who want to move us back to the gold standard. Certainly moving away from it came with plenty of controversy. I think there are a lot of parallels in general.

A lot of people still haven't fully internalized what it means for cash not to be tied to any particularly tangible item in terms of value.


Early money have always been things people believed to have intrinsic value. It started with carefully-measured containers of highest-value grains. Then gems and precious metals. It took thousands of years and support from people with guns to move to paper notes.


Chinese emperors had paper money before they had guns. The copper coins were too heavy to carry around in bulk.

but your main point stands, the paper money depended on the power of the state.


"guns" is figurative. They definitely had weapons of force....




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