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Benefit of the hindsight (sub.wetshaving.social)
submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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cross-posted from: https://sub.wetshaving.social/post/2511739

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[-] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

At least the current usage of NFTs is a twist of the pyramid scheme.

A traditional pyramid scheme works like this:

  • Alice convinces a bunch of people (let's call them collectively "Bobs") to give her money.
  • each Bob convinces a bunch of Charlies to give him money.
  • each Charlie convinces a bunch of Dans to give them money.
  • ...repeat until the scheme falls apart.

All those individuals are lured into the scheme under the promise of easy money. But each must convince at least two others to join, otherwise they get no profit. So the scheme evolves exponentially, until there's no muppet willing to join; so you have a lot of people who are basically giving money to a few ones. And Alice in special - who started the scheme - gets money for absolutely nothing.

Now look at the NFTs. There's artificial scarcity behind "owning" the picture. You can download the picture like anyone else could (would you download a car? Fuck yeah, I would), but only one person will show as the "owner" of the picture in the NFT ledge.

Why do people buy this shit? For the artistic expression of mix-and-match pictures of bored apes? Not really - because they hope to resell it for a more expensive price. So instead of relying on more muppets joining the scheme, the NFT scheme relies on each muppet paying more and more for the "art". Like this:

  • Alice "sells" Bob a bored ape picture for 50 bucks.
  • Bob re"sells" the picture to Charlie for 60 bucks.
  • Charlie re"sells" the picture to Dan for 75 bucks.
  • Dan tries to "sell" the picture to Ed, but Ed is not a sucker.

Alice got 50 bucks. Bob, 10 bucks. Charlie, 15 bucks. They all come from Dan, who's now 75 bucks poorer.

Now, here's the question: is there any legitimate usage of NFTs? I don't know; but based on what I've read, every single other potential use can be addressed in an easier way by already existing technology. For example, the other comment chain is discussing ticket scalpers.

  • Record who buys tickets, and only allow each person to buy a limited amount of them. So for example, I can buy three tickets, perhaps resell them, but if I try to buy more, whoever is selling them won't let me to.
  • Demand whoever bought the ticket to be present when the ticket is being used. So for example, I can buy ten tickets; but if I do it, none of the tickets is valid unless I'm personally present on their usage.

Note that both things can be combined, either as co-requirements or options. And while they don't completely prevent scalping, they already limit its scale.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

You're describing a classic mlm scheme and also the new late stage capitalism with "digital" products. Both are essentially, lets go rob someone.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Yup, pretty much - MLM is a specific implementation of the pyramid scheme. The key difference between MLM and the NFT scheme is that one expects more suckers; another, bigger suckers.

Just the sort of "get rich fast" scheme you'd expect in an economical system that assumes the impossible - infinite expansion and growth.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Good point thanks.

Now lets talk about the fact that capitalism too is just a pyramid scheme. :)

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

"But if you WoRk HaRd for a business you'll eventually afford your own business! Then you'll have many people to WoRk HaRd for you! You'll ger rich!"

Funnier (or sadder) thing is that the way they defend capitalism also sounds like people selling those schemes.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Exactly. Its just so silly to see people legit fight people who criticize it.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

See, I thought NFTs were going to be a tool for copyright. Like, the author of a work or purchaser of the copyright gets the token.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

NFT's are a neat technology, its a real shame people only recognize those stupid fucking monkeys as what an NFT is. I suppose it doesn't help that the ways in which an NFT could be used never really happened. Would be amazing to see NFT's change the ticket selling/scalping market.

[-] [email protected] 23 points 3 weeks ago

They really aren't.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Neat tech in search of a problem it can solve.

Still searching.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

It's not even really a neat tech. I guess you could say "blockchain" in general is a sort-of neat tech, but with massive unsolved problems (extending the chain without either wasting massive amounts of energy, or simply increasing the wealth of the already rich). But, there's really nothing interesting about NFTs.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

Would be amazing to see NFT's change the ticket selling/scalping market.

I'm interested to understand how blockchain would help here. I tried Googling a bit, but I didn't find anything particularly clear. What do you think it would improve?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

I guess scalpers wouldn't be able to sell on tickets as only the person who owns the NFT can use the ticket. So that would mean scalpers can't buy up tickets to sell at markup. Instead only people who want house the tickets themselves can buy, so fans will get the actual RRP ticket prices (I'm guessing).

[-] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago

That's still possible without using NFTs tho

[-] [email protected] -4 points 3 weeks ago

NFTs can have it built into their contract that they can't be resold.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago

hmmmm it sounds like the real power was contract law the whole time.

[-] [email protected] -3 points 3 weeks ago

But the enforcement can actually be built in and automatic with these smart contracts. This and chain of custody are probably the two most, maybe only, legit reasons to use block chain.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

The enforcement has to be done by people. The thing that decides if your ticket is valid for entry to the event is a person. All an NFT does is add a bunch of unnecessary complexity on top.

Scalping does not happen because there's not enough technology involved.

[-] [email protected] -3 points 3 weeks ago

No, the ticket can invalidate itself if/when it is resold. Hell you could take the human completely out of it and theoretically make the entrance a turnstile that scans your ticket and won't open for an invalid ticket.

Scalping does not happen because there's not enough technology involved.

Cool, but that's not what is being discussed.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

It is what's being discussed. NFTs add nothing.

What your suggesting is worse than just having a person at the door check that the name on the ticket matches the name on the person's ID. Doing it as an NFT gives absolutely no benefits.

The venue could operate the turnstile much cheaper by keeping the ticket information in their own database. It's far cheaper to do it that way. The NFTs give literally no benefit to anyone.

[-] [email protected] -4 points 3 weeks ago

If you continue to ignore the benefits, then yes it will seem like there aren't any. You're being willfully ignorant at this point.

It's far cheaper to do it that way.

It's cheaper to maintain your own codebase, hire admins to maintain the infrastructure, hire security experts to maintain the security of the infrastructure, and to take on all the risk of potential data breach and fraud on your own? You live in a fantasy world.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

...

Every professional venue already does this. You can just go on the internet and buy the ticket for the seat. All of the work that you think is fantastical is ordinary and standard.

Adding a blockchain to the end of that process makes it more expensive, and offers no benefits to the venue or the ticket buyers.

Not understanding how an industry works is not a compelling argument for NFTs.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Most venues currently outsource this to ticketmaster which encourages ticket resale. Also, just because a place is already doing it doesn't mean it's the cheapest or even most effective way of doing something.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Many venues self host. Many venues have their own box office that handles ticket sales.

Resale from ticketmaster happens because of ticketmaster's policies. NFTs are not the solution. If ticketmaster benefits from scalping, they will continue to have scalping regardless of the underlying technology. Blockchain is a solution in search of a problem.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Ok, I have a few questions on how the nft tickets would work in your world: What would they scan at the turnstile? If its simply a qr code then why not simply sell a screenshot of the qr? If it does some kind of transaction to verify that you have the wallet then who would pay the fees? They could also just create a wallet for each ticket and sell the wallet... Would the tickets you buy directly at the venue also be nfts?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

You could still sell the tickets tho. Easily.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Would be amazing to see NFT's change the ticket selling/scalping market.

NFTs offer no benefits there.

NFTs and the underlying blockchain technology only makes sense when there's no singular authority for something, and nobody among the "distributed authority" trusts each-other. Blockchain is just an extremely inefficient distributed write-only database.

But, for tickets to a venue, there is a singular authority: the venue owner. It's the venue owner who hires the people who check the tickets, and the bouncers who keep the people without tickets out. Technology isn't going to solve the issue of selling tickets / scalping because it was never a technological problem, it's a business problem.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

if i issue you a ticket, why would I need anyone but myself to vouch for the ticket? As for the scalping thing... just don't allow them to be resold, buy them back yourself

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

if i issue you a ticket, why would I need anyone but myself to vouch for the ticket?

There are sometimes problems with corruption in ticket issuers or their middlemen. So maybe if your audience doesn't trust you not to issue more tickets than the venue has space it could be a way to prove that isn't happening.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

a sequential serial number for each ticket.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Not really as good because then there's just a chance of discovering problems if people get together and compare tickets, as opposed to the whole set of records being provably committed to, not possible to conceal after the fact, and auditable by the public.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

They are a scam, full stop.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

They are a piece of technology. Its extremely weird to call tech a scam. Thats like saying landline telephone is a scam because its covered in spam calls, that doesnt really reflect the technology itself.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Pedantic much?

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

No i am just able to see the difference between a scam, and the technology used for a scam. Its simple, just like you.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Sounds pedantic to me.

Maybe in your obtuseness and devotion to an obvious scam, you forgot to use some grey matter in the matter at hand.

I might be simple honey but I'm not stupid like you.

Insults get us nowhere in discussion and are an easy deflection to what is being argued.

You might want to grow up a little before sitting at the adult's table.

Ciao bello!

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

The important part is what has been done with them. Nothing really from my pov. Only mlm scams. Thats why they're unpopular.

this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
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Anti-Corporate Movement

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This community is the first one on lemmy of its kind. It sits between the idea of anarchism/anti-capitalism and left leaning economic policy.

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