Hello! Thanks for reading another super long thing I wrote. I'll be noodling around in the comments on my work breaks if anyone has any questions or anything. Believe it or not, this piece was once even longer, so there might be one or two things I can add a bit of context or clarity to.
I just wish someone could tell me why these super rich people don't give a large proportion of their money to Friends of the Earth, Medicins sans Frontiers, Sea Shepherd, Save the Children or a thousand other charities.
I really have a huge sympathy for the French is 1789. Let's send these oxygen thieves to the guillotine and use their ill-gotten gains to try and undo the damage the 1% have done and continue to do. (We could give them the option of choosing to disburse themselves of 95% of their wealth. They'd still end up with more than normal people could ever spend, but, I mean, I'd give them a chance, before sending them for the chop!)
I consider myself to be a relatively intelligent person, but I have now read a number of explainers about NFTs and my brain simply cannot grasp the what, how, why, or even where. I can feel my mind straining for comprehension and it simply eludes me. I wonder if this is because of my age? (45) NFT's more than anything have given me a glimpse into a future of me watching the world in utter bewilderment.
I agree with everything Joshua has addressed in this piece… crypto as a whole is still a total wild-west, the use cases are minimal, the environmental impact of the leading tokens is disgusting, and a majority of the NFT space currently is get-rich-quick meme art and questionable ‘ownership’.
Something I do continually find with these discussions though is that they’re always focused on how messy things are *right now* with no potential positive future in sight.
I think we forget how quickly tech moves. How giant and clunky the first PC’s were. How nasty (but kinda fun) MS-DOS was, or the very first website you visited on your 14.4kbs dial-up modem. These mad internet algorithm/encryption scientists are figuring new things out at such a rapid pace and testing the limits of things that have never been explored before. And I don’t know if it’s fair to shut down this ‘Web3’ idea as a whole until we see some dead ends arrive. As in, the development has slowed down and progress has stopped. Right now it’s moving at light speed.
That was what drew me in to crypto originally. Not cos I’m interested in finance or investment (I assumed I would lose every cent I put in), but just the sheer concept of a brand new type of technology that completely fascinated my geek brain.
As a musician, I have hopes for blockchain one day streamlining ownership. Rather than waiting for the royalty of a single play on the radio to filter through 3 independant collection agencies, 5 different spreadsheets, a record label and a publisher to finally reach my bank account a year later, imagine being able to see that automated in an instant with no margin of error and in a totally transparent way. Dream. And there are blockchains out there trying to figure that out. Just again, it’s in the ‘work in progress’ category.
Finally as a small feel good foot-note to this to show cryptocurrency doing some good: I run a dog rescue in Los Angeles, and last year we set ourselves up to accept donations via cryptocurrency. Thanks to sites like The Giving Block (a platform dedicated to crypto donations for registered non-profits), we had over $50k USD donated in various forms of crypto. That is HUGE for us. That money is funneled directly to saving lives, from whatever weird place on the internet it came from. And there’s another 100 million USD where that came from, making its way through to other non-profits globally for 2021.
Who knows what Web3’s final form will be. Maybe it will all be a burst bubble train-wreck, but for now I’m holding on to glass half full.
Feb 2, 2022·edited Feb 2, 2022Liked by David Farrier
Great write up, and mirrors a lot of my thoughts.
I do differ on crypto in general. I'm still a believer... In its potential. Not proof of work, which as Josh pointed out, is horrific energy wise, but proof of stake. I still think that there's a possible future where they become a viable alternative to fiat currency.
However, I'm worried about how much hype crypto, and NFTs, are getting. Crypto is currently useless (apart from making crypto investors rich) because the tech just isn't ready. All these various crypto blockchain companies are working tirelessly, coding and problem solving and trying to create something new.
I think their work will eventually pay off.
But not for a while.
So what you have now is a prospective gold rush and all that implies. There are individuals and corporations trying to get rich, you have people trying to exploit the ecosystem that's developing around it, you have straight up criminals doing criminal shit, scammers and grifters taking advantage of people's greed.
It's toxic as fuck. And that makes me sad. Because if you listen to the people actually involved in the development of these various crypto/blockchain projects (well... The reputable ones anyway), they're not toxic at all. They're optimistic tech nerds, trying really hard to create something unique and useful. But their projects are getting coopted and cannibalised by hype and greed.
And then there's the whole NFT market, which Josh is absolutely right about. It's just the fine art world, turned digital and cranked up to 11.
I'm an artist too, and people often suggest I sell NFTs, but I haven't, for all the reasons listed by Josh. It just feels like a huge bubble, waiting to burst. There are times where I think it serves a legitimate purpose. Beeple, for example, is a legitimately renowned artist, who works in a purely digital format (so you can't buy an "original") and his NFT was a representation of five years of artistic work. I can see why an art collector would want it. Is it worth $69 million? Probably not. But that's an art world problem, not an NFT problem.
The Bored Apes, or those stupid lions though? Those things are completely fucking pointless and exploitative capitalistic nonsense.
As Josh says, NFTs are essentially a receipt. They're a bit of background tech that no one should know about. They can potentially have uses for things like a ticket receipt, or to be used as membership to an online service (I've heard of a boxing trainer selling NFTs that act as links to his database of training videos, for example). Basically, you shouldn't be buying an NFT. You should be buying something useful, that is delivered to you using NFT technology. Literally the only people who should know what an NFT is are tech nerds and the people responsible for coding them.
In some ways, I think this backlash against crypto and NFTs is probably a good thing. Hopefully the hype will die down a bit, the world will move on to something else, and the crypto developers can get back to trying to create some cool technology that can actually help people, and not just turn the fucking planet to ash.
I think it's unfair to equate NFT Art with Web3. It's the one that gets the most attention because it's where people are making money and then us older gen's go, 'wait. what? why?'. People are buying non tangible things all the time in the gaming world (and maybe its better to buy a pretend new pair of shoes than a real pair from an enviro perspective?).
Anyway, as you mention below Josh, the people actually involved in the Web3 'vision' I find to be thoroughly refreshing to listen to and fill me with hope. yes i'm an idealist at heart but they are not 'tech bro's' (i think thats a bit like saying all dope smokers are gang members, pretty unfair) at all, very much want to set up communities which are inclusive and world changing. But they are self aware enough to see the issues e.g. 'we want it to be inclusive but as their is a cost of entry to most communities then that brings over the same power imbalances of real life'. Some of the ideas I hear them talking about which as an ex-corporate employee (maybe not so obvious if you've not worked for within one) are:
- Your 'reputation' is visible to all - all your onchain actions are seen. So this means you are judged not by how well you can blabber about 'what you did before' (overly favours the dominant groups of society) but what you actually did! you see how CEOs easily bounce from a total failure at a business to a new business because they just talk about 'systemic issues', or 'previous management' etc etc. this negates this. LOVE.
- Minority discrimination - you can do your on-chain/online work as whoever you want to so no sub-conscious bias comes into play.
- potential for disabled employees is huge. no location, no employee bias or lack of understanding you just go online and do your thing.
- DAOs - decetralised autonomous organisations - onchain investing clubs is the short version. you find a group with a likeminded vision or values and you actually do something. there are currently DAOs bringing people (and their money) together to look at regenerative ag and social justice opportunites, another one wants to disrupt the large consumer goods companies They can act quickly and not be tethered to philanthropic handouts. they also dont' have shareholders to convince of it being a 'scale-able' investment, as they just get on and do it. no company to set up etc.
- the 'light side' of Web3 seems perfect for millenials which are the main players at the moment. the complaint from the generations above is that they want to 'own the place' straight away. the other version was that they want to have meaning in their work - a concept genX and boomers never understood as we were told it's about 'getting ahead' (as an aside it's why 'how do we monetise this' was the second question to any Web2 idea). Well in Web3 communities and DAOs you are literally an owner, anyone can contribute (i.e. its decentralised). and you pick something which has meaning for you. I remember when I worked for Unilever they tried to persoalise any problem by having you ask yourself 'would you do it if it was your money you were spending'. which half worked, but the reality it was not our money and decisions were not actually based on our values but what 'the company' wanted. Web3 has the potential to reverse that.
so sure, label it all bullshit and tech bros and a gold rush, but to my still very uneducated mind, that is not a deep dive at all, but a bomb in the shallow end. You didn't mention the gas fees as another issue for artist creation on ethereum, or conversely the potential of new tech such as Solana which works differently to Eth and provides a solution for smaller scale transactions?
one question Josh - i can't find any reference to being able to change an NFTs blockchain thus negating the royalties which seems like the main drawcard for creators as music heads into this space too?
I am unsure why there is such depth of feeling against NFTs vs lack of understanding or confusion, but actual hatred and contempt? It feels a bit like when we discuss legalising cannibis and people get very emotional and angry about the possibility. When you try to say 'but what about alcohol' the answer is 'oh but we already have that'. which is true, but should that mean its usage (and devastating affects) shouldn't also elicit the same anger??? i guess humans like certainty and knowledge. 'The better the devil you know' is a saying for a reason.
I'm writing sitting in my home office surrounded by art works made or collected by family. I grew up in the 80's with raku kilns in the garden, originals for lost-wax bronze casting sitting in the porch workshop and paintings all over the place, and I rather like that forward slash 'drawing' so I get the attraction to art. I draw and take photos myself when I get a moment which isn't often.
However, the connection of 'high end' art to finance/speculation/art 'investment' really bothers me. I'm much happier in the kind of tradition where people make art to communicate, or to build communities, or to express something!
I think as an artist who hates this shit the moment I finally snap is coming. Will it be tomorrow? Maybe. Next month? Possibly. Most likely a few years from now when some kid looks at prints I have for sale at a show and says “cool! Fungible Tokens”.
To anyone still on the fence (somehow) I would point you to the New Zealand National party's spokesperson for science and technology, the Honourable Judith Collins, who thinks NFTs are "incredibly exciting". https://twitter.com/JudithCollinsMP/status/1488665936597237763
I think the comparison to contemporary art is a really useful one because it points out how NFTs (and crypto in general) aren't actually allowing people to do anything new. Everything around it is stuff that people would be doing anyway. It actually makes me a lot less bothered by the whole thing.
This is fascinating and a topic I try to get my head around so thanks.
Like many gentrified areas I wonder if NFT's is just another gentrified space [this may not be a that-accurate use of the word] occupied by a particular sub-set.
I do ponder though how could NFT's be applied in a more useful, less investment-style - like for warranty's for products and rego's for cars - say I brought a fridge that had a 'Lifetime' warranty, but I brought second-hand and I wanted to argue that said 'lifetime' warranty was still valid - some design error or part malfunction happened, then perhaps the domestically functional NFT could mean I could service the fridge with the manufacturer - reduce waste, holding producers to more accurate advertising standards, reducing all that mountain of paper/printing/bureaucratic-process to a single string of numbers.
I've also just read Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson which proposed a use of the blockchain that created greater transparency and reduced the hiding of currency in tax havens etc.
As mentioned the current web 3 is like a 'Wild West' scenario, but it must be remembered the the Wild West we have in our head is often the product of Hollywood & not real life, AND whatever that period was actually like it was only temporary. Is it possible to bend this towards something better, and away from the grift.
just thoughts, but thanks again for the provocation.
What is the difference between a long establish bank doing it's best to maximise profits and take money off me, than some celebrity shill or other rich person? I don't see much difference at all, in the amount of abuse that can come from either source. The long list of grievances against "too-big-too-fail" and massive bonuses and stupid lending and blah blah blah all seem same same-y with abuses by crpto fiends.
Hello! Thanks for reading another super long thing I wrote. I'll be noodling around in the comments on my work breaks if anyone has any questions or anything. Believe it or not, this piece was once even longer, so there might be one or two things I can add a bit of context or clarity to.
I just wish someone could tell me why these super rich people don't give a large proportion of their money to Friends of the Earth, Medicins sans Frontiers, Sea Shepherd, Save the Children or a thousand other charities.
I really have a huge sympathy for the French is 1789. Let's send these oxygen thieves to the guillotine and use their ill-gotten gains to try and undo the damage the 1% have done and continue to do. (We could give them the option of choosing to disburse themselves of 95% of their wealth. They'd still end up with more than normal people could ever spend, but, I mean, I'd give them a chance, before sending them for the chop!)
I consider myself to be a relatively intelligent person, but I have now read a number of explainers about NFTs and my brain simply cannot grasp the what, how, why, or even where. I can feel my mind straining for comprehension and it simply eludes me. I wonder if this is because of my age? (45) NFT's more than anything have given me a glimpse into a future of me watching the world in utter bewilderment.
I agree with everything Joshua has addressed in this piece… crypto as a whole is still a total wild-west, the use cases are minimal, the environmental impact of the leading tokens is disgusting, and a majority of the NFT space currently is get-rich-quick meme art and questionable ‘ownership’.
Something I do continually find with these discussions though is that they’re always focused on how messy things are *right now* with no potential positive future in sight.
I think we forget how quickly tech moves. How giant and clunky the first PC’s were. How nasty (but kinda fun) MS-DOS was, or the very first website you visited on your 14.4kbs dial-up modem. These mad internet algorithm/encryption scientists are figuring new things out at such a rapid pace and testing the limits of things that have never been explored before. And I don’t know if it’s fair to shut down this ‘Web3’ idea as a whole until we see some dead ends arrive. As in, the development has slowed down and progress has stopped. Right now it’s moving at light speed.
That was what drew me in to crypto originally. Not cos I’m interested in finance or investment (I assumed I would lose every cent I put in), but just the sheer concept of a brand new type of technology that completely fascinated my geek brain.
As a musician, I have hopes for blockchain one day streamlining ownership. Rather than waiting for the royalty of a single play on the radio to filter through 3 independant collection agencies, 5 different spreadsheets, a record label and a publisher to finally reach my bank account a year later, imagine being able to see that automated in an instant with no margin of error and in a totally transparent way. Dream. And there are blockchains out there trying to figure that out. Just again, it’s in the ‘work in progress’ category.
Finally as a small feel good foot-note to this to show cryptocurrency doing some good: I run a dog rescue in Los Angeles, and last year we set ourselves up to accept donations via cryptocurrency. Thanks to sites like The Giving Block (a platform dedicated to crypto donations for registered non-profits), we had over $50k USD donated in various forms of crypto. That is HUGE for us. That money is funneled directly to saving lives, from whatever weird place on the internet it came from. And there’s another 100 million USD where that came from, making its way through to other non-profits globally for 2021.
Who knows what Web3’s final form will be. Maybe it will all be a burst bubble train-wreck, but for now I’m holding on to glass half full.
Im starting to think I'm not smart enough for webworm because I still don't get it.
Great write up, and mirrors a lot of my thoughts.
I do differ on crypto in general. I'm still a believer... In its potential. Not proof of work, which as Josh pointed out, is horrific energy wise, but proof of stake. I still think that there's a possible future where they become a viable alternative to fiat currency.
However, I'm worried about how much hype crypto, and NFTs, are getting. Crypto is currently useless (apart from making crypto investors rich) because the tech just isn't ready. All these various crypto blockchain companies are working tirelessly, coding and problem solving and trying to create something new.
I think their work will eventually pay off.
But not for a while.
So what you have now is a prospective gold rush and all that implies. There are individuals and corporations trying to get rich, you have people trying to exploit the ecosystem that's developing around it, you have straight up criminals doing criminal shit, scammers and grifters taking advantage of people's greed.
It's toxic as fuck. And that makes me sad. Because if you listen to the people actually involved in the development of these various crypto/blockchain projects (well... The reputable ones anyway), they're not toxic at all. They're optimistic tech nerds, trying really hard to create something unique and useful. But their projects are getting coopted and cannibalised by hype and greed.
And then there's the whole NFT market, which Josh is absolutely right about. It's just the fine art world, turned digital and cranked up to 11.
I'm an artist too, and people often suggest I sell NFTs, but I haven't, for all the reasons listed by Josh. It just feels like a huge bubble, waiting to burst. There are times where I think it serves a legitimate purpose. Beeple, for example, is a legitimately renowned artist, who works in a purely digital format (so you can't buy an "original") and his NFT was a representation of five years of artistic work. I can see why an art collector would want it. Is it worth $69 million? Probably not. But that's an art world problem, not an NFT problem.
The Bored Apes, or those stupid lions though? Those things are completely fucking pointless and exploitative capitalistic nonsense.
As Josh says, NFTs are essentially a receipt. They're a bit of background tech that no one should know about. They can potentially have uses for things like a ticket receipt, or to be used as membership to an online service (I've heard of a boxing trainer selling NFTs that act as links to his database of training videos, for example). Basically, you shouldn't be buying an NFT. You should be buying something useful, that is delivered to you using NFT technology. Literally the only people who should know what an NFT is are tech nerds and the people responsible for coding them.
In some ways, I think this backlash against crypto and NFTs is probably a good thing. Hopefully the hype will die down a bit, the world will move on to something else, and the crypto developers can get back to trying to create some cool technology that can actually help people, and not just turn the fucking planet to ash.
I think it's unfair to equate NFT Art with Web3. It's the one that gets the most attention because it's where people are making money and then us older gen's go, 'wait. what? why?'. People are buying non tangible things all the time in the gaming world (and maybe its better to buy a pretend new pair of shoes than a real pair from an enviro perspective?).
Anyway, as you mention below Josh, the people actually involved in the Web3 'vision' I find to be thoroughly refreshing to listen to and fill me with hope. yes i'm an idealist at heart but they are not 'tech bro's' (i think thats a bit like saying all dope smokers are gang members, pretty unfair) at all, very much want to set up communities which are inclusive and world changing. But they are self aware enough to see the issues e.g. 'we want it to be inclusive but as their is a cost of entry to most communities then that brings over the same power imbalances of real life'. Some of the ideas I hear them talking about which as an ex-corporate employee (maybe not so obvious if you've not worked for within one) are:
- Your 'reputation' is visible to all - all your onchain actions are seen. So this means you are judged not by how well you can blabber about 'what you did before' (overly favours the dominant groups of society) but what you actually did! you see how CEOs easily bounce from a total failure at a business to a new business because they just talk about 'systemic issues', or 'previous management' etc etc. this negates this. LOVE.
- Minority discrimination - you can do your on-chain/online work as whoever you want to so no sub-conscious bias comes into play.
- potential for disabled employees is huge. no location, no employee bias or lack of understanding you just go online and do your thing.
- DAOs - decetralised autonomous organisations - onchain investing clubs is the short version. you find a group with a likeminded vision or values and you actually do something. there are currently DAOs bringing people (and their money) together to look at regenerative ag and social justice opportunites, another one wants to disrupt the large consumer goods companies They can act quickly and not be tethered to philanthropic handouts. they also dont' have shareholders to convince of it being a 'scale-able' investment, as they just get on and do it. no company to set up etc.
- the 'light side' of Web3 seems perfect for millenials which are the main players at the moment. the complaint from the generations above is that they want to 'own the place' straight away. the other version was that they want to have meaning in their work - a concept genX and boomers never understood as we were told it's about 'getting ahead' (as an aside it's why 'how do we monetise this' was the second question to any Web2 idea). Well in Web3 communities and DAOs you are literally an owner, anyone can contribute (i.e. its decentralised). and you pick something which has meaning for you. I remember when I worked for Unilever they tried to persoalise any problem by having you ask yourself 'would you do it if it was your money you were spending'. which half worked, but the reality it was not our money and decisions were not actually based on our values but what 'the company' wanted. Web3 has the potential to reverse that.
so sure, label it all bullshit and tech bros and a gold rush, but to my still very uneducated mind, that is not a deep dive at all, but a bomb in the shallow end. You didn't mention the gas fees as another issue for artist creation on ethereum, or conversely the potential of new tech such as Solana which works differently to Eth and provides a solution for smaller scale transactions?
one question Josh - i can't find any reference to being able to change an NFTs blockchain thus negating the royalties which seems like the main drawcard for creators as music heads into this space too?
I am unsure why there is such depth of feeling against NFTs vs lack of understanding or confusion, but actual hatred and contempt? It feels a bit like when we discuss legalising cannibis and people get very emotional and angry about the possibility. When you try to say 'but what about alcohol' the answer is 'oh but we already have that'. which is true, but should that mean its usage (and devastating affects) shouldn't also elicit the same anger??? i guess humans like certainty and knowledge. 'The better the devil you know' is a saying for a reason.
Great piece, thank you.
I'm writing sitting in my home office surrounded by art works made or collected by family. I grew up in the 80's with raku kilns in the garden, originals for lost-wax bronze casting sitting in the porch workshop and paintings all over the place, and I rather like that forward slash 'drawing' so I get the attraction to art. I draw and take photos myself when I get a moment which isn't often.
However, the connection of 'high end' art to finance/speculation/art 'investment' really bothers me. I'm much happier in the kind of tradition where people make art to communicate, or to build communities, or to express something!
I think as an artist who hates this shit the moment I finally snap is coming. Will it be tomorrow? Maybe. Next month? Possibly. Most likely a few years from now when some kid looks at prints I have for sale at a show and says “cool! Fungible Tokens”.
To anyone still on the fence (somehow) I would point you to the New Zealand National party's spokesperson for science and technology, the Honourable Judith Collins, who thinks NFTs are "incredibly exciting". https://twitter.com/JudithCollinsMP/status/1488665936597237763
I think the comparison to contemporary art is a really useful one because it points out how NFTs (and crypto in general) aren't actually allowing people to do anything new. Everything around it is stuff that people would be doing anyway. It actually makes me a lot less bothered by the whole thing.
This is fascinating and a topic I try to get my head around so thanks.
Like many gentrified areas I wonder if NFT's is just another gentrified space [this may not be a that-accurate use of the word] occupied by a particular sub-set.
I do ponder though how could NFT's be applied in a more useful, less investment-style - like for warranty's for products and rego's for cars - say I brought a fridge that had a 'Lifetime' warranty, but I brought second-hand and I wanted to argue that said 'lifetime' warranty was still valid - some design error or part malfunction happened, then perhaps the domestically functional NFT could mean I could service the fridge with the manufacturer - reduce waste, holding producers to more accurate advertising standards, reducing all that mountain of paper/printing/bureaucratic-process to a single string of numbers.
I've also just read Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson which proposed a use of the blockchain that created greater transparency and reduced the hiding of currency in tax havens etc.
As mentioned the current web 3 is like a 'Wild West' scenario, but it must be remembered the the Wild West we have in our head is often the product of Hollywood & not real life, AND whatever that period was actually like it was only temporary. Is it possible to bend this towards something better, and away from the grift.
just thoughts, but thanks again for the provocation.
What is the difference between a long establish bank doing it's best to maximise profits and take money off me, than some celebrity shill or other rich person? I don't see much difference at all, in the amount of abuse that can come from either source. The long list of grievances against "too-big-too-fail" and massive bonuses and stupid lending and blah blah blah all seem same same-y with abuses by crpto fiends.
Man, having a conscience really sucks sometimes.
Thank you Josh, this is brilliant. I'll be thinking about it for weeks. Humans *sigh
Great piece.