Simplicio: What do you think about NFTs? Salviati: I don't think about them much. I don't really care about that sort of thing. Sim: What do you mean by that sort of thing? Sag: Like paying for shit online. I pirate everything. Sim: What? That's totally different. You need to support creators and artists. Sag: I'm not sure I see the distinction here. Either way, the money is going to the creators. Sim: Yeah, but then you get the goods. While for NFT's, you don't actually get anything. Sag: If I'm able to get the music or game for free whether I pay for it or not, then isn't paying for it equivalent to getting nothing? Sagredo: What are you guys talking about? Sal: NFTs Sag: What are NFTs? Sim: They're jpegs that people sell to each other for like 50K. Sim: That's a lot Sim: Yeah, but there's a bubble because people think they can flip them for even more later. That, or money laundering. Sag: How do you own a jpeg? Can't you just right click save. Sim: Well, it's slightly more than a image. It's like one of those star registries that sell you the "rights" to unofficially name a star. Sag: Does it comes with ownership? Sim: It's like a fake ownership according to the star registry only. It doesn't come with the copyright or anything. Sag: That's so stupid. Sal: I don't know if the star registry analogy is a good one. First off, idk if owning a star is the same as owning a jpeg, since the star physically exists. Also, the registry itself could just do whatever, whereas the blockchain enforces the NFT can only do certain things. I think the better analogy is that they are like signed copies, with payment rails attached. Sag: What does that mean? Signed copies? Sal: Exactly that. You know what digital signatures are right? It's how you know the contents of amazon.com are actually from amazon and not some hacker. NFT art is when the artist attaches their digital signature to their work. Sim: But anyone can mint an NFT. So, you have no idea it actually came from the artist. Sag: Really? Sim: Yeah. Most NFTs are actually made with stolen art. Sal: You know by checking the signature. If the artist has their public key in their online profiles, then you can check the NFTs are from that artist or not. Sag: Public key? Sal: You can think of it like a signature template which can be used to verify the actual signatures. Sim: No one actually does that though. Sal: It's up to them if they want to lose money. Sim: Ok. But even assuming the art is from the artist, NFT's don't even come with the image attached. It's on some website, and if it goes down then the image is lost. Sal: That's bad practice. It should be hosted on something like IPFS Sag: What's IPFS? Sal: It's a file storage method using peer-2-peer software like BitTorrent. Sim: Yeah, but there's tons of torrents without any seeders. The same thing could happen here, then the image is lost. Sal: You don't think the artist or owner would want to seed their 50K investment if that happened? Sim: What if someone replaces the image that's being seeded? Sal: Don't you know how the technology works? You think BitTorrent would work if someone could send any data instead of the actual file in the torrent? Sim: Ok. But I don't see the purpose of NFTs when you could just use Patreon or something. Sal: First off, Patreon takes a big cut and has different requirements like minimum funding levels. But even if they didn't, don't you think it’s up to the artist what methods and services they want to use to monetize? Sim: Well, it just feels exploitative. You end up paying a LOT of money for basically nothing at all. And also, it means only whales get to participate, no one else really matters. Sal: As opposed to something like Twitch donos? Sim: Well, the whales matter more there, but it's not like they're the only ones that matter. Sal: You know, this reminds me of the early 2000s, when everyone would get tons of flack for "selling out". Nowadays, when you get a sponsorship basically everyone sees it as a good thing. Back then it was like you completely lost your artistic integrity. Sim: What about the environmental impact? I heard each NFT is like the equivalent of a jumbo jet flying across the ocean Sal: Well, the main blockchains that NFTs live on is moving off Proof of Work this year, so that's going to stop happening soon anyways. Sim: I heard they've been saying that for years now? Sal: It's more like they've been saying they WANT to do it for years now, but only now have they actually got the details and set a real deadline. Sag: I think until that actually happens, I'm not going to buy any NFTs. Sal: That's reasonable. I'd be very surprised if it doesn't happen before the end of 2022. Sim: Ok, whatever. They can do it if they want to, I'll just ignore them. But at least keep it out of my games. Sal: Game companies aren't allowed to make money? Sim: They already make enough. Have you seen microtransactions? Sal: I actually think there are some implementations where NFTs could potentially be better than microtransactions. Like for a CCG, imagine if instead of there being two parallel f2p and p2w tracks, you unlocked cards by playing the game. If you want to unlock cards right away, you have to buy it from someone else. Instead of selling packs directly, the company takes a cut off each transaction. Sim: What's the benefit to that? Sal: Well, first off, the f2p players get compensated for their time, which benefits them and potentially grows the player base. Secondly, it means the items are in a more real economy like in Eve Online or RuneScape, which is more interesting and potentially useful for balancing. It also means that if the game company goes away, it's both easier for other people to recreate the game state and an incentive for the game company to let other people do it. Sim: Balancing? Doesn't this make the game harder to rebalance? Every time you change the item, you are wrecking people's investment Sal: Maybe. In my opinion it's the same, you lost your time or money. There's a lot of ways to explore the tradeoffs, like legacy modes, or bonus progress towards future unlocks. Sim: Maybe. I don't trust the game companies not to fuck it up and do the absolute most exploitative thing though. Sal: Lol me neither. Sim: ... Sag: Guess they gotta make money somehow, I guess. Sim: I don't know. It just feels wrong to me to introduce scarcity into the digital world. It feels like going in the wrong direction. Sal: That's why I pirate everything. Sim: Fuck you.