The ultimate scarcity is human attention and creativity - so in the limit that will always be a thing that is a form of wealth. The ownership of digital assets (NFTs or not) is fundamentally an output of a system where someone chooses to expend creative energy into making the asset, and traded that opportunity cost off based on the expected outcome. A scenario where that work would not be something they could capture value from by enforcement mechanisms of scarcity would lead to some of these efforts not happening. (Not all of course, many people do amazing CC licensed work. But it doesn’t pay the bills.)
But digital is a realm of infinite copying, and where true ownership of bits means that you can never show them off (like Shkreli and that A Tribe Called Quest album). NFT 'ownership' is an additional layer on top of the data that can easily be stripped away, as the exclusivity only exists in the minds of those gullible enough to actually value it.
I am very tired of watching humans constantly try to impose real-world economic scarcity into a digital land of infinite plenty. Rather than fight the nature of a digital economy, why not embrace it?
People who want to create works that can be infinitely copied, will. People who want to create works that have various kinds of cultural norms imposing scarcity, will. There is no “fight”, it’s just saying that you’d prefer less options for people to choose how to expend their creative energy. Nobody is stopping a person from turning the knob all the way to “infinite free copies,” but the idea here is to make a knob that is granular, multidimensional, and under their control, as opposed to under the control of a few centralized actors.
Besides, NFTs actually embrace your philosophy: allow copies, and shift scarcity elsewhere to things like social status. It is not DRM, obviously. You should be a fan.
While they permit infinite copies, the ownership bit strips away potential egalitarianism. Scarcity needs to be stripped and not an option. There shouldn't be a knob that allows one to select 'infinite copies', that should be the default. And ownership should either be collective or none at all.
Permitting ownership enables an unnecessary layer of stratification that humanity is best without, in a rare environment that actually allows for the lack of it.
You don't get to decide that. Your prejudices and carefully bonsaie gardened imperatives about how you think the world should work be do not change that fact any more than the tantrums in congresses and parliaments demanding encryption that doesn't work for "bad guys". It is fundamentally about information and its shapes.
Such is the nature of idealism. It is a shame we allow a world of plenty to artificially lock up value so a few people can feel better than others
Alternatively, why is a piece of data not allowed to just be? You can see this everywhere, even outside the digital world and in the realm of the mind. An idea is never allowed to stand on its own merits, we always have to attach our bullshit culture to it
You have a fundamental misunderstanding. The point is you simply will not get certain creative works in this model. They will not be worth the opportunity cost. There is no reality where you get “no scarcity” as well as “all the creative works you would have gotten with scarcity.” (Ie, probably most of those which have led to our present day wealth.)
Your proposed world is to say we ought to just not have people create lots of stuff they would have otherwise, in the name upholding a philosophical principle. Which is fine, but own that, and don’t act as though its the just the deficiencies of others leading to a world where you do not get a endless stream of value from them.
I'm willing to lose "some" creative works because of a lack of scarcity. Speaking from experience, artists will always want to create. That is the creative drive. There is no reason that work should not be accessible to all if the technology allows for it.
If it would mean less profiteers, less fakers, less pretenders, less sharks, less debutantes, less tourists... I'm all for it.
There are plenty of ways to profit as an artist without locking up one's work to a privileged few
Will the artistic landscape be different? Sure. But it would be a worthy change.
What you’re saying is that the artists who are currently paid for their work either will create it gratis or we can live without it. A fairly bold claim to make that this would be a worthy change, given the loss of creative work and loss of quality of life to those who create it that it would yield. Particularly when the counter argument is just to let artists produce work on their own terms, which will arguably be a better local maximum of the version of the world you advocate for and the one we have today.
