What is the true nature of the NFT bubble

boing
1

Originally published at: What is the true nature of the NFT bubble | Boing Boing

…

2

I guess I just figured it was the same reason Nero fiddled.
We’re distracting ourselves.
image

12 Likes
3

qkceb9vxkjx71
qkceb9vxkjx71750×694 65.8 KB

32 Likes
4

It’s just like beanie babies, except:

  1. When the value crashes, you can at least play with the beanie babies
  2. beanie babies don’t burn the planet
26 Likes
5

So, I might be completely out of touch, but I hadn’t even heard about the “metaverse” until Zuck coined (or maybe popularized?) the term. Now everyone is talking about it like it’s a thing.

I acknowledge that I’m the modern version of someone who can’t program their VCR, but is the metaverse as a concept something that I need to care about? Is the metaverse a real world version of Nozick’s pleasure machine?

6 Likes
6

It’s Zuck trying to take credit for the several decades old concept previously called cyberspace.

24 Likes
7

I think we all have to just cross our fingers and hope the answer is “no”.

17 Likes
8

I like to think of them more like pet rocks. In hope that the fad is as short.

12 Likes
9

As well as, much more concerningly, mold it to his purposes and shove us all into it.

If it were just an arrogant techbro trying to take credit for a term coined by Neal Stephenson in 1992, almost certainly under heavy influence of William Gibson in 1984, that would be tasteless; but ultimately of little more than aesthetic relevance.

It’s the rest of the plan that is of actual concern.

(That said, whenever Team Tech starts spending a lot of time banging on about how something is ‘inevitable’, rather than y’know, doing it; there is always room to suspect that they may be spending a lot of time talking the talk because they aren’t as sure about being able to walk the walk.(Especially given that ‘the metaverse’ as a vague phrase simultaneously encompasses stuff we were doing in the 90s that hasn’t actually coalesced into a parallel digital reality and stuff that has yet to leave tech demo land and may not have a plausible trajectory to do so.)

In Zuck’s case, the “Pivot to video” was also going to be inevitable; and that ended up being little more than a pocket of dishonesty in how Facebook counted ad impressions)

7 Likes
10

Haven’t been able to force me onto faceturd yet.

6 Likes
11

There’s an NFT for that.

8 Likes
12

Aren’t you afraid to make a copy of it? The police will come knocking on your door.

5 Likes
13

I wonder in a few years if i’ll be able to buy one of those fancy outdoor pizza ovens with Kizuna Ai tokens :rofl:

14

Who has the money to buy these things? And couldn’t it be devalued by simply creating a huge number of NFTs with small variations?

4 Likes
15

insta

20 Likes
16

image

6 Likes
17

Now I can’t unhear a version of “walking after midnight” about funging tokens.
I’m just hoping you may be out there somewhere, funging tokens, just like me. :notes:

7 Likes
18

I’m increasingly glad that I’m old enough to be able to opt out of using NFTs (or, closely related, living my life in Zuck’s metaverse).

Is there a term for the joy that comes from not having to participate in some grand societal change? I’ve certainly felt it from never having signed up for Facebook.

19 Likes
19

Sanity?

11 Likes
20
10 Likes