What's the connection between NFTs and using real money to pay for Fortnite skins?

The notion that people paying for digital assets means that people will pay for NFTs.

It's meaningless, though, since the same (massive) caveats apply as when cryptocoins tried to claim they were a viable and better alternative to traditional financial services: buying and owning digital assets is entirely possible to handle with existing, more efficient technology.

Nobody that sells digital assets has any reason to buy into whatever purported benefits a distributed system provides other than hype: you don't need a distributed system if you already control all the servers and everyone is fine with that. The subset of customers that will be _REALLY MAD_ that they can't use their Fortnite skins should Epic disappear is vanishingly small.

NFTs don't even have the edge case that they're useful for transactions for illegal goods. It's grifters boosting bullshit trying to make a profit through and through.

The idea of paying for an unique digital asset, even if it is just unique by social convention, would not be foreign to my kids.

If you think about it, land ownership is also just a very well established social convention.

But land ownership gives you an actual, tangible benefit. You get exclusive use of the land. NFTs don't offer anything except bragging rights.

It gives you a benefit in the real world vs a benefit in a virtual world. It's not that different especially for people who spend more time in virtual worlds than the real one.

The part I don't understand is what benefit NFTs actually have in the either the real or virtual world, outside of bragging rights.

The connection is that both are instances of people paying real money for imaginary goods. I don't know how I feel about that, but intuitively it doesn't seem a smart thing to do.

But that's been a thing in videos for at least 30 years -- expansion packs shipped on disc for a long time -- and a common thing in almost the modern form since 2006 (Elder Scrolls Oblivion adds cosmetic-only horse armor to game for $2, online purchase only).

If you think NFTs add to that the ability to resell as a hedge against initial purchase price, then Valve added a player driven market to TF2 in 2012, the same year Blizzard added the real money auction house.

If you think NFTs add the ability to use content across games, Metal Gear Solid had features involving reading other game save files in 1998, Nintendo Amiibo launched in 2014, and Steam also allows for this via player inventories.

If you think NFTs add the ability to cash out for real money, that's been possible via external third party sites in TF2 since 2013, and analogously for real money gold sales in World of Warcraft since about 2004.

There are ways in which all of the examples above are not totally perfect and/or are more technically clunky than the vision of what this looks like in 5-10 years, but qualitatively more or less every feature of NFTs already exists in various forms over the last 20 years, in some cases all in the same product.

If the Segway was invented and the inventor cited Jules Verne and Isaac Asimov as influences, but had never heard of or wasn't willing to talk about scooters, vespas, skateboards, or cars, that'd be a huge red flag, even if you think that Segways add a bit of value.

So I think the parent's question is still pretty well taken -- what's the connection between the thing everyone's been willing to do for 20 years and the thing that's alleged to be new and different?

> analogously for real money gold sales in World of Warcraft since about 2004.

Even in the late 90’s folks were buying and selling virtual items in Ultima Online.

> VR is very attractive for teenagers and preteens

Headsets are horribly bad. The day I can get my VR onto my glasses, that's the day that VR will be for everybody. My headset, and many people I known headsets, is in a box. I love VR, I love the games, but I find it too cumbersome for day to day use compared with my screen.

> NFT

Yes. This is already extremely popular, but you do not need NFTs. Your old and proved in-game assets make millions a day. NFT allows for a distributed proof that most people does not care for. It's going to require a lot of marketing and government regulations and trial sentences to make it enforceable and safe.

Got an oculus quest 2 this week. Better than last time I tried one, but still not great. Often going out of focus, and I have problems with fog.

I tried all the things, from VR experiences to porn. Kind of neat, but I still very much prefer the real world. I guess I will play through resident evil 4 and half life alyx, and then the thing will collect dust in a corner again.

One thing that felt quite dystopian was the giant house you can get as your home environment. I can see people living in a tiny apartment with no access to beautiful nature using this to escape from the real world, as soon as the quality gets a bit better.

Regarding NFTs: I don't get it, but I also don't dismiss it completely as a scam. There is of course a large FOMO / get rich quick component, but also an underlying desire for digital ownership and agency.

My wife had that problem with fog and we found an adapter on Amazon that had vents around the padding and it fixed it.

I don't know what the focus thing is about, though, unless the headset is shifting around on your head, and the fix for that is a new strap. The stock strap is pretty meh.

On the Wii, the killer experience for most people wasn't Mario Bros, but was Wii Sports. On the Quest, there's a lot of games that let you use your body well, such as Walkabout Minigolf or Beat Saber. Alyx is good, but not as compelling as the sports games, IMO. It also plays on the computer and requires a wire or a good router and has occasional problems because of that link. Games that play directly on the headset are generally less frustrating.

I'm 45 and already spend more than half of my day in VR. My morning workout is done in VR, then I move on to guided meditation session, before finally starting work in Immersed.

What headset do you use so the text is not pixelated? What mind of work do you do?

I use a quest 2, with prescription inserts from Reloptix. Add the Input font (input . djr . com) for my system and application fonts (for apps that support it, like IDEs). And it's good enough for me at this point.

Yes, the ideas are not new. but they are not bullshit. as someone who also has kids that spend money on virtual goods like it’s going out of fashion, i can attest that the impact on my bank account is very real.

The NFT craze (and cryptocurrencies in general) is largely fuelled by an inflationary global currency ($) and dare i say it, a lot of money laundering too. But that does not make the sector illegitimate.

in fact some of the platforms that have risen out of web3 already (ssb/patchwork) for example are indeed just better versions of dystopian counterculture that have gone before.

i’d say the author here is just keen to shout at the TV as the big corporate news breaks.

Billionaires will be the ones who may end up benefiting least from a true move to a dystopian, decentralised internet as Web3 is hinting at.

Personal experience with my kids shows the opposite.

Lucky you.

Any tips how to get the kids to appreciate the real world more? It's not like I am not trying, but I also don't want to deprive them of computer games.

I basically grew up gaming and hacking on computers (starting with an Atari 800), and I liked it.

Do things with them - not “go out side I want to use the computer” but actual activities involving you working hard - and not just the things you like. Kids playing Minecraft? Go visit an actual mine. Kids like racing games? Go to a racetrack or a monster truck rally. Rent a bobcat if you have land to use it on.

And "outside" could actually mean in the living room or garage, building things, too. I learned a lot of things just watching my dad repair houses and handing him tools. He just needed to get it done to get on to having fun, and didn't think to include me in the actual work most of the time unless he thought it'd speed things up, but I still learned quite a lot from it.

It could also mean art or music.

And finally... It could still be on the computer, making digital art, video games, writing novels, etc, instead of just playing games and chatting. Learning to create the experiences is hard, but the reward for having created them is pretty compelling and the skill carries across different softwares pretty easily, setting them up with those skills for life.

I try to do all of these as much as possible. Hiking, mountainbiking, go-cart, or even airsoft. They like all of that, but the allure of things like minecraft or fortnite is still very strong.

But maybe that is normal. After all it took myself decades to figure out life so much that now I enjoy real life. Was just hoping there might be a shortcut.

You misunderstand.

Of course they're addicted to screens, like all kids these days.

It's just that they want a quick and easy fix, and certainly not to wear one around their heads.

Addictive screen technology has no "wow" factor for people that had them from birth. Screens are about as exciting and cool as daytime television was in the pre-Internet era. (And similarly, we somehow can't stop wasting hours a day on them still.)