🌳 Nfts Change How We Create

I talk a bit in 🌳 predicting the effects of a new medium is hard about how we can better predict the impact of a new medium on the art we create. Let’s go through that exercise with NFTs.

I’ll use the framework I laid out before:

1. Assume it’ll get faster, easier, and more robust.

Easy. Assume NFTs are cheap and easy to create. Assume everything discussed in “🌱 NFT best practices necessitate proving data integrity” is resolved. We solve file decay problems, link validation problems, and royalties-don’t-work-if-you-sell-them-on-a-different-platform problems. The security gets better and the technology is perfectly and safely usable.

2. What aspects of the human condition will have an impact?

With content so far it’s been the dopamine addiction. Our predecessors may have dreamt of man improving himself by listening to “Adam Smith’s moral sentiments”, but little did they know that an hour long podcast episode of two guys talking about Gilmore Girls would be more engaging.
- The dopamine drip has resulted in more humorous content, content lengthening and shrinking, CGI, etc.
Human sentiments like tribalism, belonging, compassion, and elitism also drive the content we create.

The first point is the reason we see things like pet rocks, Bored Apes, cats, and so on. Presumably eventually we’ll move on from that to things that are more engaging. Maybe Bitmojis, videos, or NFTs that can interact with each other. Whatever it is, jpgs won’t sustain us for long.

The second point is where it gets interesting. Status and belonging are already in play to a certain extent. The amount of money spent on an Ether Rock ID number (the picture itself is not on the blockchain) is, in part, a status symbol. Belonging will make larger use cases more appealing, as will tribalism, curiosity, and creativity. Humans love to be creative. If there are tools that allow people to build complex, interoperable NFTs easily, the space will explode.

3. Imagine the feedback loop

As mentioned in 🌳 predicting the effects of a new medium is hard, this is the hardest part. Whether it’s showcased in grains of rice or more formally, there’s a common conception that the human brain doesn’t conceptualize exponential growth well.

While there’s no way to definitively predict exponential change, I’m going to use a cyclical pair of questions to practice exponential thinking:

“What can I create that I couldn’t before?” 🔄 “What if everything was build like this?”

Let’s go through a few cycles with these questions. I’ll use the sun emoji (☀️) to represent the first question, and the moon (🌑) for the second.

☀️ What can I create with NFTs that I couldn’t before?

NFTs change how we create by allowing creators to attach an economy to a piece of media. Artists can take the route of building access and interoperability into their artwork: you can display this Beeple piece in your living room, and also you can use it at Christie’s to gain access to their more discerning auctions.

🌑 What if everything was built this way?

It won’t be just fancy artists using this. Any artist can. You can display this Solange poster NFT in your dorm, and you can also use it to unlock a private area of her personal website where she posts unreleased samples of upcoming music. And people can build in-person experiences too. For example, “Sweetgreen gives you 10% off if you come in with tickets to an Osaka match.”

☀️ What can I create with all these NFTs on public blockchains?

If more and more companies are integrating with public blockchains, that data can be used by anyone. Async.art allows you to create NFTs that change based on stock price, weather, etc. But if event tickets, band posters, luxury good tracking, and more ends up on public blockchains, there will be so much more data for artists to work with. I’m reminded of the meditative work of Toshiyuki Inoko and TeamLab. Currently, folks find YouTube videos of people steam cleaning a dirty car relaxing. What if your Zoom meeting background was a custom NFT you bought that fluctuates to represent the migratory patterns of your favorite shark species?

🌑 What if everything integrated with these personalized NFTs?

I love the idea of conservation finding a new way to appeal to donors. Instead of an NFT that tracks hammerhead migration patterns, you could create an NFT that changes based on a donor’s “adopted” shark. Your sponsored animal could be your avatar on social media or your character in a video game.

☀️ What can I create if everyone owns NFTs that speak to their identity and beliefs?

Polling can take different approaches here. Public support for, say, shark conservation suddenly becomes more public than just money in Shark Week coffers. I wonder if you could build community sites based on the NFTs people owned. You must own a shark conservation NFT to join this organizing network. That becomes an almost-natural approach to a DAO.

🌑 What if every political movement was organized as a DAO?

I wonder if this would result in increased activity in unions or other political groups. On the one hand, NFTs might be able to increase connection to a cause and gamify support of a cause due to ubiquitous integration. Are you likely to stop your shark adoption if you’re playing Fortnite as that shark five hours a week? On the other hand, attention is finite. Voting in union decisions might be easier, but getting educated on the options will still take effort and energy that folks may not be able or willing to put in. This could result in increased uninformed voting or increased drama. Imagine if a nuanced policy decision within the shark conservation organization becomes a flame war on Fortnite.

The difficulty and power of compounded brainstorming is interesting here. The cyclical questions did get the ball rolling: did they compound as expected? Let’s see. Is an adopted shark avatar twice as unexpected as using a Beeple NFT as a ticket to an exclusive Christie’s event? Probably. Is a shark conservation DAO twice as unexpected as an adopted shark avatar? I’m not sure. It definitely feels four times as unexpected as a Beeple NFT ticket.

What to build away from

We’ve talked a bit about positive and neutral potential changes from NFTs. We should also consider the negatives. I’m reminded of 🌱 the ability to go public on day 1 is a trap: with this freedom, there are pitfalls and responsibility. NFTs make DRM easy. You thought “[[🌰 the future is rented]]” before? Now you’re not just renting audiobooks each month, there is no option for you to own audiobooks. It’s NFTs all the way down, you are paying 6 companies $300/mo to access all the media you consume.

Plus, as we’ve discussed before, 🌱 money strips an interaction of spiritual value, which could change relationships for the worse. Consider musicians and fans as an example. Before, a callous company paid royalties so you could create an album your fans loved. If you crowd-fund an album through NFT sales, your fans may be as excited about their incoming royalties as they are about the music itself. Soon your stadiums could be filled with more investors than fans.

There’s more to discuss here. What are your predictions? What are the obvious impacts of NFT on the way we create media? What are the less obvious impacts?

Inspired by:

Bottled Authors: The Predigital Dream of the Audiobook

Related to:

Every post on this blog is a work in progress. Phrasing may be less than ideal, ideas may not yet be fully thought through. Thank you for watching me grow.