> You don't buy a jpeg, you buy the unique item that John Cleese sold.

A NFT is not an item.

> Same for movie props. You can buy a nice lightsaber below $200. The ones that were used in the movies... a bit more.

Those are things. There is no correlation. NFT is selling you a pointer. It's a hash that on one software platform says "that thing over there". When Bob buys a NFT, he isn't buying a lightsaber that he can display, loan out, or hold . Bob is buying a number.

Right, but in this case, you're buying a number provably owned by John Cleese, as part of a performance piece where he sold a token representing the Brooklyn Bridge, as a commentary on the entire concept of selling numbers. It's meta, it's brilliant, it's popular, (it's absolutely going to devalue the other Brooklyn Bridge NFT I own because mine was minted first but this one's more popular), it's ART.

That's a good point, and I think you're right for this one instance. It's an exceptional case and the artistic statement literally can't be made without NFT. He's telling a joke and the fact that someone will buy the NFT is itself the punchline.

If Bob buys a movie prop lightsaber for $10,000 and a fully quality replica costs $200, then Bob has only bought $200 worth of something he can display, loan out, or hold. The remainder of the price is made up of the intangible connection to the film and artists.

I see what you're saying that the authenticity and the connection have some value. That value is intrinsic to the object itself though. NFT is asking us to pretend that that "intangible connection" can be parceled out for speculators as collectible magic numbers while the real lightsaber hopefully sits in Lucasfilm's warehouse.

Sure, but this NFT was specifically valued for the interaction of the sale of this NFT. Just like buying Dorsey's Tweet is. It's just pure commoditized interaction without a base good under it.

I do agree that it's completely ridiculous, but I feel that way about the stock market.

The main (and dangerous) difference with the NFT stuff is that society doesn't agree any of this stuff is valuable. It's a bit like what happens when a conquering power comes in and existing land titles become meaningless. A good example of this was real estate moguls in prewar Japan, many of whom had spent centuries gradually accumulating land tenancy over tons of other people - but as soon as WW2 happened, one of the big changes that transformed that country was that all of those land titles were simply dissolved.

Just, -poof-. Gone.

Ownership of that land was simply taken from them, and evenly divided amongst their tenants.

There's a very similar danger with i.e. property rights inside of videogames and stuff - until and unless there's case law about it, I can go into my buddy's proverbial minecraft server, wreck all of his (potentially months of) work, and there's really nothing he can do about it. I might lose a friend over it, but I won't lose a lawsuit.

The illustrative bit about the minecraft server is I'm at the mercy of "the community of people who agrees that thing has value", and in this case, it's one person.

I'd assume part of the artistic statement being made here ties exactly to your point about land. It's ultimately just ALL certificates that are unconnected to possession of the physical space. The difference between owning the NFT and owning the bridge is a matter of scale; of how many people buy into the worth of your scrap of digital paper.

NFTs imply there is a platform which supports the contract and blocks all non-ownership AND people will use no other platforms

Not necessarily.

It would be more impressive if Jack can sell his first tweet, once on each major platform. Now they are somewhat fungible, non fungible titles. If one is worth more than the other, why?

While I agree with you on the surface, it not being able to be displayed is not really true. Bob may not hang it up on their wall or hold but they can put it on their website. Bob can make a dedicated personal museum showing their ownership live streamed in vrchat and altspacevr. Bob can constantly talk about it on their social media. Bob can be an equally big asshole about this as if they could hold it physically.

Thats not something that translates into digital content. That original lightsaber is valuable because it is unique, it can never be recreated, a jpeg is infinitely reproducible, thus less valuable

"item"