Here’s another question for you and some more food for thought.
Your country is by far the biggest economic power in the world. One of the he big reasons behind that is that the business world uses USD.
What do you think is going to happen to the US economy if the business world decides to leave the USD?
There are a lot of players fighting to make that happen. It will be good for some, not so good for others. I’m sure some will profit handsomely from it.
Think about the answers to those two questions, think about the ramifications to your country no matter your political affiliation.
Imho
Yeah I know man. Loss of power and control. Inability to fund public services. Things will get reeeal expensive, chiefly war. Inflation like we've never could have imagined. Why do you think countries around the world are trying desprately to find ways to tax crypto currencies.
Fyi We've seen this time and time again over the ages.
Will the dollar die, no i don't think so. It's a stable median of exchange. Will you continue to have to add 0s to your bill. Yes without question.
The reason the business world uses USD is real simple:
It's the Safest, Most Stable and Most Reliable ***STANDARD*** that exists in the World today. Your country gets a great benefit from that fact.
If the business world decides to leave the USD, its because that is no longer True. And if that is no longer true then America has lost its place in the world.
Imho
My understanding was because America was a military super power, and we demanded that we be the king shits, or we would not play ball with the rest of the world, that is one of the ways America got sucked into playing World Police.
To be honest, I am in fact looking forward to when the Chinese Yuan takes over, or something else.
Using the USD is completely voluntary. There are no regulations never has been. It’s all about trust that the currency will stay at the same value. If it’s up and down like a yo-yo it ain’t no damn good. Your right about the fact that WW2 put the US in that position. Things like the Marshall Plan.
edit: It’s real simple, people trust your money. It's all about trust. What are people trying to do with Crypto right now? Trying to undercut peoples trust in the USD.
When I purchase an expensive piece of machinery, I usually have to wait a minimum 9 months before delivery probably a lot longer today with these supply chain issues. When I sign the contract I have to worry about how much money that machine is going to cost me come delivery time.
For you it will be exactly the same price. Be careful what you wish for.
This is why I expect someone to eventually apply a F2P model to the P2E approach. With these combined, you could easily add unlimited non earning accounts, with earning slowly growing as you add investment. This would allow for free players to enjoy the game, but for players that invest to earn some returns as well. It would still allow for investors to run scholarships for those that want to earn with no investment, but all of this would be done AFTER players are playing the game. I see this as the future for most online games.
Oh, and for how this all began, the oldest game that I am aware of that has any variation of P2E was Project Entropia (now Entropia Universe)
The problem is that a free to play Ponzi scheme doesn't work. Why can you sell axies for so much money? Because people have to pay a lot of money to get them in order to play the game! Without the big buy-in for players trying to get good axies so that they can make money themselves, who will buy the axies that people are trying to sell?
I am not sure you have thought about what you just said:
1. F2P can not have a buy in.... that is P2P. 2. Axies cost money to make, so people sell them at a cost greater than that amount.
If you are required to buy Axies, then it is not F2P (which is why I said someone will comeup with a F2P model).
Also, Axie Unlimited is not P2E because you can breed an sell Axies. It is P2E because you can EARN SLP by playing.
P2E is pretty new, and they are working out the details still. However, if it is done right, it is both scalable and provides a long term value. I remember when people were saying similar things about F2P (and still are). However, the reality is that this approach does add value, and as such will evolve to be the new standard.
Then again, the success of some awful mobile games at getting whales to drop ridiculous amounts of money does suggest that it's plausible.
It is interesting that in this case the whales are not players. They are investors. They put money into the game, so that others can play, and so that they can profit share from that.
Interesting info. I didn't know Valve made this change. The article conclusion isn't very well thought out (no surprise there since anyone with internet can be a "journalist" now).
From the article:
"That said, Valve does allow people to exchange virtual goods for Steam Wallet funds through the community market, so SpacePirate's belief that Steam doesn't permit items with real-world value doesn't entirely hold water."
Valve doesn't allow users to cash out their Steam Wallets for money. The money chain in Steam is a one way street. The value in digital items on Steam comes from third party auction sites and Valve has already come under heavy scrutiny over this.
Allowing users to cash out Steam Wallets for fiat currency will only add more scrutiny and entangle them in tax reporting.
If Steam ever goes the way of Blockbuster it won't be crypto schemes that send them there. I think it will be subscription services like Game Pass and how service oriented game media libraries evolve.
Im not sure you guys see this. From marvel comics trying to ban its artist from selling their original work via nfts. to apple not allowing crypto purchases of nft through apps on their app store. to steam.
One reason and one reason only, complete 100% control of proceeds. (The exact oppisite of axie as we further examine) Moving forward we will see more of these stories over the next couple years from this old gaurd.
Think about this. Someone builds the exact same type of platform as steam, but the items steam now sells and gives are nfts and can traded freely among players. Trust me it's coming. Players will choose.
To your point about steam wallets, steam wallets are not used with these games. they would play 0 part in the transactions, thus the ban.
Players control their wallets in blockchain games. No 3rd party wanted or needed.
Disney/Marvel isn't banning original artists from selling their art as NFT. They're claiming complete copyright control over those images and IP based on the relationship those workers have had with Marvel. They're banning those artists from selling that art period. It has nothing to do with NFTs.
This is what makes you come across as an MLM cultist and not someone whose opinion I can take seriously. You're distorting facts to try and sell an agenda and then claiming to see things that others can't.
In Steam Land if a digital asset can be sold on the Steam Market it fills the Steam Wallet and has no real world value. If a digital asset can be sold off the Steam Market and has real world value and can also be traded inside Steam Land then it would have real world value. If it were traded on the Steam Market then it would be a real world value item on the Steam Market. If Steam Wallet funds are used to purchase these assets in game then Steam would also be part of the revenue chain and involved in taxes. It is convoluted and fraught with legal encumbrance for very little or no return to Steam.
It makes perfect sense that Steam would ban these games. They're an entertainment service and not a speculation/trading platform. I guess they made a decision not be a speculation and trading platform. That's perfectly reasonable and no cause for alarm or suspicion they will tank as a result. Netflix, Hulu, and others are pure entertainment platforms and are doing just fine.
I don't trust you or anyone trying to sell me something to make money from me. I'm sure those platforms are coming, but that is completely irrelevant.
Artist have always sold their work. This IS specifically about NFTs.
Marvel and DC Say Artists Can’t Sell NFTs of Their Superheroes
But the ban is seen as a serious impediment for artists who sell valuable collectibles based on derivative work of Marvel and DC characters — one that will prevent them from accessing an important source of revenue. To soften the blow, Marvel is apparently receptive to giving artists secondary revenue opportunities on VeVe, an app for digital collectibles."
"So what rights are granted to an artist when it comes to copyright? And how can they affect those in possession of a physical work of art? Look no further than Section 106, Copyright Act of 1976, as amended, codified in Title 17 of the U.S. Code. For those in too much of a hurry, I’ll summarize: Copyright gives artists who have created fixed, tangible works a bundle of rights in those works. The rights provide both artistic protection and ensure that artists can profit from what they’ve made. After an artist creates a piece, they have the right to make copies of their work, distribute those copies, perform or display the work publicly, or make works that derive from the original."
And to the explanation of steam "wallet" there is 0 liquidity in it. I'm not ssure you understand how nft market places work. You don't have to trust me. I don't need your money either bud lol. Just remeber what you've been told.
Interesting info. I didn't know Valve made this change. The article conclusion isn't very well thought out (no surprise there since anyone with internet can be a "journalist" now).
From the article:
"That said, Valve does allow people to exchange virtual goods for Steam Wallet funds through the community market, so SpacePirate's belief that Steam doesn't permit items with real-world value doesn't entirely hold water."
Valve doesn't allow users to cash out their Steam Wallets for money. The money chain in Steam is a one way street. The value in digital items on Steam comes from third party auction sites and Valve has already come under heavy scrutiny over this.
Allowing users to cash out Steam Wallets for fiat currency will only add more scrutiny and entangle them in tax reporting.
If Steam ever goes the way of Blockbuster it won't be crypto schemes that send them there. I think it will be subscription services like Game Pass and how service oriented game media libraries evolve.
Im not sure you guys see this. From marvel comics trying to ban its artist from selling their original work via nfts. to apple not allowing crypto purchases of nft through apps on their app store. to steam.
One reason and one reason only, complete 100% control of proceeds. (The exact oppisite of axie as we further examine) Moving forward we will see more of these stories over the next couple years from this old gaurd.
Think about this. Someone builds the exact same type of platform as steam, but the items steam now sells and gives are nfts and can traded freely among players. Trust me it's coming. Players will choose.
To your point about steam wallets, steam wallets are not used with these games. they would play 0 part in the transactions, thus the ban.
Players control their wallets in blockchain games. No 3rd party wanted or needed.
While there will certainly be platforms that attempt to allow you to buy a digital copy of a game and then later resell it to other players, that's going to face a tremendous amount of resistance from game developers.
Game developers need to make money. If only 10% of the people who "buy" your game pay you for it and the rest buy a "used" copy, then "buy to play" is not a viable business model. In that case, developers will have to find creative ways to either get whales to pay a ton of money or make sure that people who buy that used copy still have to pay to play it. For all of the nickel-and-diming of the most predatory of the "free to play" games to make its way into single-player offline desktop games would be a very bad thing.
Bruh you are wrong flat out. No big deal. Marvel and DC artist have been selling thier sketchs and finished works FOREVER. This is about NFTs specifically. Has nothing to do with me. Distrust hate me all you want.
Just take a minute and understand before you start in with your bullshit.
"This practice of comic artists selling their own artworks mostly dates back from the 70's in the USA. Prior to this artworks were retained by the publishers and sometime even destroyed by editors to clean up shelves space ! Neal Adams, the most influencial artist of the 70's was instrumental in ensuring that comic art where returned to the creators. It took him and other artists which joined this fight, nearly 20 years to have publishers returned all original artwork produced over work for hire terms. The market for original artwork really started to take off during the late 70's early 80's.
In Europe, work for hire in the intellectual business (movies, books, comics...) does not exist. So artist have always retained property of their art as well as that of the characters they created. Nevertheless original comic art sales started mostly again during the 70's. Sure the Pop Art movement (Wahrol Liechtenstein... )did a lot to shed light on this previously derided art form."
There's a huge difference between being and independent artist and creating your own work and being employed by a company to make art for your employer.
These artists don't own the characters and have no right to sell art that features them.
There's nothing stopping them from creating new artwork that doesn't feature copyrighted material to sell as NFTs. Why can't they do that?
There's a huge difference between being and independent artist and creating your own work and being employed by a company to make art for your employer.
These artists don't own the characters and have no right to sell art that features them.
There's nothing stopping them from creating new artwork that doesn't feature copyrighted material to sell as NFTs. Why can't they do that?
That's the way it works.
Also, if you invent something for your employer while being paid, you have no rights to the patent.
There's a huge difference between being and independent artist and creating your own work and being employed by a company to make art for your employer.
These artists don't own the characters and have no right to sell art that features them.
There's nothing stopping them from creating new artwork that doesn't feature copyrighted material to sell as NFTs. Why can't they do that?
BECAUSE MARVEL AND DC SAID THEY CANT DO IT lmao.
That's why there's a problem.
I'm going to need a link to where Marvel and DC are stopping artists from creating and selling their own original work (and by this I don't mean new drawings of copyrighted characters, I mean completely original) and not just stopping them from selling copyrighted material.
Selling original artwork is not the same as selling digital NFT copies. The artists have the right to sell the original, they don't have the right to sell and distribute copies.
The two comics titans are cracking down on the ability of their comic book artists to sell NFTs of characters owned by each of those two companies.
Comic book artists argue that they have always been allowed to sell their artwork. However, the two companies said that artists are always allowed to sell their physical artworks, and not digital.
What's more, both DC and Marvel noted that the tradition of comic book artist being allowed to sell their original physical artworks are limited to works on pencil and ink arts, and have only existed as a "gift," of sorts, by the companies, and not a right.
Seems pretty complicated... I believe reference is important. This ban went into affect within the last few months.
There's a huge difference between being and independent artist and creating your own work and being employed by a company to make art for your employer.
These artists don't own the characters and have no right to sell art that features them.
There's nothing stopping them from creating new artwork that doesn't feature copyrighted material to sell as NFTs. Why can't they do that?
BECAUSE MARVEL AND DC SAID THEY CANT DO IT lmao.
That's why there's a problem.
I'm going to need a link to where Marvel and DC are stopping artists from creating and selling their own original work (and by this I don't mean new drawings of copyrighted characters, I mean completely original) and not just stopping them from selling copyrighted material.
Selling original artwork is not the same as selling digital NFT copies. The artists have the right to sell the original, they don't have the right to sell and distribute copies.
The two comics titans are cracking down on the ability of their comic book artists to sell NFTs of characters owned by each of those two companies.
Comic book artists argue that they have always been allowed to sell their artwork. However, the two companies said that artists are always allowed to sell their physical artworks, and not digital.
What's more, both DC and Marvel noted that the tradition of comic book artist being allowed to sell their original physical artworks are limited to works on pencil and ink arts, and have only existed as a "gift," of sorts, by the companies, and not a right.
Seems pretty complicated... I believe reference is important. This ban went into affect within the last few months.
Makes sense to me. Marvel and DC allow them to sell the original physical copy that they drew, but they do not allow them to make copies of that art and sell it, physical or digital. NFTs are no different.
They cant redraw copyrighted characters and they can't make digital copies of old art to sell as NFTs. There's still nothing stopping them from creating wholly new artwork and selling NFTs.
The only reason they want to sell art of those specific characters is it's worth more money, which I find greedier than a company protecting its IP.
"Remember: A comic book artist doesn’t retain the right to reproduce their original art, but they do keep the right to sell that piece of art that they created.'
We all are pretty lay on the of topic comic book art. Look closer at the term digital. Again reference is important. Nice read below.
There's a huge difference between being and independent artist and creating your own work and being employed by a company to make art for your employer.
These artists don't own the characters and have no right to sell art that features them.
There's nothing stopping them from creating new artwork that doesn't feature copyrighted material to sell as NFTs. Why can't they do that?
BECAUSE MARVEL AND DC SAID THEY CANT DO IT lmao.
That's why there's a problem.
I'm going to need a link to where Marvel and DC are stopping artists from creating and selling their own original work (and by this I don't mean new drawings of copyrighted characters, I mean completely original) and not just stopping them from selling copyrighted material.
Selling original artwork is not the same as selling digital NFT copies. The artists have the right to sell the original, they don't have the right to sell and distribute copies.
The two comics titans are cracking down on the ability of their comic book artists to sell NFTs of characters owned by each of those two companies.
Comic book artists argue that they have always been allowed to sell their artwork. However, the two companies said that artists are always allowed to sell their physical artworks, and not digital.
What's more, both DC and Marvel noted that the tradition of comic book artist being allowed to sell their original physical artworks are limited to works on pencil and ink arts, and have only existed as a "gift," of sorts, by the companies, and not a right.
Seems pretty complicated... I believe reference is important. This ban went into affect within the last few months.
Makes sense to me. Marvel and DC allow them to sell the original physical copy that they drew, but they do not allow them to make copies of that art and sell it, physical or digital. NFTs are no different.
They cant redraw copyrighted characters and they can't make digital copies of old art to sell as NFTs. There's still nothing stopping them from creating wholly new artwork and selling NFTs.
The only reason they want to sell art of those specific characters is it's worth more money, which I find greedier than a company protecting its IP.
"Remember: A comic book artist doesn’t retain the right to reproduce their original art, but they do keep the right to sell that piece of art that they created.'
We all are pretty lay on the of topic comic book art. Look closer at the term digital. Again reference is important. Nice read below.
I'm not seeing the issue. I'm sorry, I'm not on the artists side here. They don't have the right, period.
Nothing stopping them from creating their own art and selling it however they want.
You work/worked for Marvel drawing Spider-Man and want to sell Spider-Man NFTs? Too bad, sell original artwork of flowers, create new heroes or cartoon characters, anything but copyrighted material.
Until a few months ago. Comic book artist sold their original work, full stop.
Their interpretation of wonder woman, their interpretation of spider man.
Now DC and Marvel say they can not put those same drawings (pencil or digital) in NFT format.
In NFT format these comic book artist were selling these works and getting a royalty (programmed into the NFT) each time those 1 of 1 drawings were resold.
The royaty part is what DC and Marvel take umbrage with. DC and Marvel are cut out from that royalty.
There's a huge difference between being and independent artist and creating your own work and being employed by a company to make art for your employer.
These artists don't own the characters and have no right to sell art that features them.
There's nothing stopping them from creating new artwork that doesn't feature copyrighted material to sell as NFTs. Why can't they do that?
BECAUSE MARVEL AND DC SAID THEY CANT DO IT lmao.
That's why there's a problem.
I'm going to need a link to where Marvel and DC are stopping artists from creating and selling their own original work (and by this I don't mean new drawings of copyrighted characters, I mean completely original) and not just stopping them from selling copyrighted material.
Selling original artwork is not the same as selling digital NFT copies. The artists have the right to sell the original, they don't have the right to sell and distribute copies.
The two comics titans are cracking down on the ability of their comic book artists to sell NFTs of characters owned by each of those two companies.
Comic book artists argue that they have always been allowed to sell their artwork. However, the two companies said that artists are always allowed to sell their physical artworks, and not digital.
What's more, both DC and Marvel noted that the tradition of comic book artist being allowed to sell their original physical artworks are limited to works on pencil and ink arts, and have only existed as a "gift," of sorts, by the companies, and not a right.
Seems pretty complicated... I believe reference is important. This ban went into affect within the last few months.
Makes sense to me. Marvel and DC allow them to sell the original physical copy that they drew, but they do not allow them to make copies of that art and sell it, physical or digital. NFTs are no different.
They cant redraw copyrighted characters and they can't make digital copies of old art to sell as NFTs. There's still nothing stopping them from creating wholly new artwork and selling NFTs.
The only reason they want to sell art of those specific characters is it's worth more money, which I find greedier than a company protecting its IP.
"Remember: A comic book artist doesn’t retain the right to reproduce their original art, but they do keep the right to sell that piece of art that they created.'
We all are pretty lay on the of topic comic book art. Look closer at the term digital. Again reference is important. Nice read below.
I'm not seeing the issue. I'm sorry, I'm not on the artists side here. They don't have the right, period.
Nothing stopping them from creating their own art and selling it however they want.
You work/worked for Marvel drawing Spider-Man and want to sell Spider-Man NFTs? Too bad, sell original artwork of flowers, create new heroes or cartoon characters, anything but copyrighted material.
Until a few months ago. Comic book artist sold their original work, full stop.
Their interpretation of wonder woman, their interpretation of spider man.
Now DC and Marvel say they can not put those same drawings (pencil or digital) in NFT format.
In NFT format these comic book artist were selling these works and getting a royalty (programmed into the NFT) each time those 1 of 1 drawings were resold.
The royaty part is what DC and Marvel take umbrage with. DC and Marvel are cut out from that royalty.
You can create a billion NFTs from one piece of art if you wish. The result would be like some collectible items that are numbered #1, #2, #3, etc.
Now that NFTs are becoming popular I hope that artists who have managed to get right to sell their original work would also get the right to create and sell a single NFT for each original work. It would be logical extension to their right and good additional benefit for them.
However creating a NFT means that you're creating a copy, and the artists have never had right to create and sell copies of their works, just the originals. As it is the large media companies are being consistent about that, and it's the artist who want to sell NFTs who are trying to get additional right to do something they've never been allowed to.
There's a huge difference between being and independent artist and creating your own work and being employed by a company to make art for your employer.
These artists don't own the characters and have no right to sell art that features them.
There's nothing stopping them from creating new artwork that doesn't feature copyrighted material to sell as NFTs. Why can't they do that?
BECAUSE MARVEL AND DC SAID THEY CANT DO IT lmao.
That's why there's a problem.
I'm going to need a link to where Marvel and DC are stopping artists from creating and selling their own original work (and by this I don't mean new drawings of copyrighted characters, I mean completely original) and not just stopping them from selling copyrighted material.
Selling original artwork is not the same as selling digital NFT copies. The artists have the right to sell the original, they don't have the right to sell and distribute copies.
The two comics titans are cracking down on the ability of their comic book artists to sell NFTs of characters owned by each of those two companies.
Comic book artists argue that they have always been allowed to sell their artwork. However, the two companies said that artists are always allowed to sell their physical artworks, and not digital.
What's more, both DC and Marvel noted that the tradition of comic book artist being allowed to sell their original physical artworks are limited to works on pencil and ink arts, and have only existed as a "gift," of sorts, by the companies, and not a right.
Seems pretty complicated... I believe reference is important. This ban went into affect within the last few months.
Makes sense to me. Marvel and DC allow them to sell the original physical copy that they drew, but they do not allow them to make copies of that art and sell it, physical or digital. NFTs are no different.
They cant redraw copyrighted characters and they can't make digital copies of old art to sell as NFTs. There's still nothing stopping them from creating wholly new artwork and selling NFTs.
The only reason they want to sell art of those specific characters is it's worth more money, which I find greedier than a company protecting its IP.
"Remember: A comic book artist doesn’t retain the right to reproduce their original art, but they do keep the right to sell that piece of art that they created.'
We all are pretty lay on the of topic comic book art. Look closer at the term digital. Again reference is important. Nice read below.
I'm not seeing the issue. I'm sorry, I'm not on the artists side here. They don't have the right, period.
Nothing stopping them from creating their own art and selling it however they want.
You work/worked for Marvel drawing Spider-Man and want to sell Spider-Man NFTs? Too bad, sell original artwork of flowers, create new heroes or cartoon characters, anything but copyrighted material.
Until a few months ago. Comic book artist sold their original work, full stop.
Their interpretation of wonder woman, their interpretation of spider man.
Now DC and Marvel say they can not put those same drawings (pencil or digital) in NFT format.
In NFT format these comic book artist were selling these works and getting a royalty (programmed into the NFT) each time those 1 of 1 drawings were resold.
The royaty part is what DC and Marvel take umbrage with. DC and Marvel are cut out from that royalty.
You can create a billion NFTs from one piece of art if you wish. The result would be like some collectible items that are numbered #1, #2, #3, etc.
Now that NFTs are becoming popular I hope that artists who have managed to get right to sell their original work would also get the right to create and sell a single NFT for each original work. It would be logical extension to their right and good additional benefit for them.
However creating a NFT means that you're creating a copy, and the artists have never had right to create and sell copies of their works, just the originals. As it is the large media companies are being consistent about that, and it's the artist who want to sell NFTs who are trying to get additional right to do something they've never been allowed to.
Aaaand that's why there's lawyers and media involed.
Let's back away from NFTs for a moment and ask why any job should pay anything at all. Well, why should it? The ultimate answer is that you get paid to do your job because your job does something that other people value. In a complex, modern economy, many jobs play some tiny role in doing something tremendously complicated. A lot of people play some tiny role in the creation of an iPhone, but ultimately, they're playing a role in creating something that people want and are willing to pay for.
There are basically three cases that I can think of where you can make a case that a job is productive:
1) Producing goods. An apple farmer does something or other, and then he has apples available to sell that didn't previously exist. If people want those apples because they need to eat to live, then the farmer has created something of value. Many other goods are much more complicated than this, but ultimately, you're creating an item that people want and are willing to pay for.
2) Delivering services. A barber doesn't create a haircut that can be put into a box and shipped across the country in the sense that a farmer does so with an apple. But still, creating services is fundamentally about doing something to help particular people enough that they're willing to pay for it without hurting others in the process. As with goods, many people play some small role in delivering complex services. People usually don't directly pay for, say, the janitor who cleans the bathrooms at a stadium, but that janitor does play an important role in making the entertainment service offered by the stadium actually work.
3) Creating public goods and preventing externalities. There are some things that, at a societal level, create more net benefit than the cost, but really can't be delivered by free markets where the people who benefit directly pay. The police officers who maintain order by preventing robberies and murders and so forth have an important role to play, even if they're not directly paid for particular goods or services that they provide to people. The same is true for a regulatory agency that prevents a society's drinking water from being poisoned. This is usually done by governments, though sometimes charities create public goods.
I can't think of any productive job that doesn't fit into (at least) one of those three categories. There are some other ways that people make a living, but it's not productive, it's not beneficial to society, and it really isn't respectable. Some are criminal, such as a mugger. A beggar or a professional gambler might not be criminal, but neither does society benefit from their existence. They only redistribute what others have produced and do not produce anything themselves, and their redistribution is not done in a way that benefits society. They do not create anything to benefit society, but only impose costs and siphon off the things produced by others.
The problem with "play to earn" is, how is it productive? And if it's not, then where does the money to provide the earnings come from? Perhaps one could devise some clever play to earn model in which you're providing a service to the players who are paying you. Think of renting a group member for group content, for example.
Crypto-games where the "play to earn" is by selling NFTs don't have any real case for being productive. To the extent that they're creating axies or whatever the NFT is, the company that made the game could trivially produce millions of them. In the same sense, gold farmers do not do anything productive, but only redistribute resources in harmful ways. If generating gold were good for society or good for the game or whatever, then the company that made the game could trivially generate it and sell it themselves.
Thus, NFT-based play to earn is at best siphoning off labor to use it in unproductive ways, akin to panhandlers. Whether or not it works as a way to make money, it's bad for society. And in the long run, it's not going to work as a way to make money, either.
Charles Ponzi's key insight was that you can promise the same money to several people at once, and it looks like it works so long as no more than one of them tries to withdraw their money. If ten people each deposit $100 and you promise them that it's now worth $200, then you can pay out withdrawals from the collective pot and it seems to work until the sixth person tries to withdraw his money. The early people to take money out tell their friends, hey, this really works, and that leads more people to put money in. So long as money is coming in faster than it's going out, it seems like it works.
Until, at some point, money runs out and the scheme collapses. In a true Ponzi scheme, whoever is running the scheme typically sees the writing on the wall and disappears with the remaining net deposits without waiting for them to run dry. The point of running such a scam is to make money yourself, after all.
That's not likely to be the way that dodgy cryptocurrency based schemes end up. Rather, at some point, the value of what people thought they owned will drop precipitously. Once people realize that the value is going to keep dropping, no one will want to buy into an asset that everyone expects to lose value. That will only make it drop much faster. See what happened to Enron stock, for example.
And people are going to be seriously hurt by it. There will be people who put in $1000 up front, treated it as a job for months, thought they had $10000, and learn that it vanished and they can't even get back their initial $1000. They won't just be out their initial investment, but they'll also have lost the wages that they could have made in the meantime by getting a real job--or perhaps keeping the previous job that they quit because they thought "play to earn" worked better.
Let's back away from NFTs for a moment and ask why any job should pay anything at all. Well, why should it? The ultimate answer is that you get paid to do your job because your job does something that other people value. In a complex, modern economy, many jobs play some tiny role in doing something tremendously complicated. A lot of people play some tiny role in the creation of an iPhone, but ultimately, they're playing a role in creating something that people want and are willing to pay for.
There are basically three cases that I can think of where you can make a case that a job is productive:
1) Producing goods. An apple farmer does something or other, and then he has apples available to sell that didn't previously exist. If people want those apples because they need to eat to live, then the farmer has created something of value. Many other goods are much more complicated than this, but ultimately, you're creating an item that people want and are willing to pay for.
2) Delivering services. A barber doesn't create a haircut that can be put into a box and shipped across the country in the sense that a farmer does so with an apple. But still, creating services is fundamentally about doing something to help particular people enough that they're willing to pay for it without hurting others in the process. As with goods, many people play some small role in delivering complex services. People usually don't directly pay for, say, the janitor who cleans the bathrooms at a stadium, but that janitor does play an important role in making the entertainment service offered by the stadium actually work.
3) Creating public goods and preventing externalities. There are some things that, at a societal level, create more net benefit than the cost, but really can't be delivered by free markets where the people who benefit directly pay. The police officers who maintain order by preventing robberies and murders and so forth have an important role to play, even if they're not directly paid for particular goods or services that they provide to people. The same is true for a regulatory agency that prevents a society's drinking water from being poisoned. This is usually done by governments, though sometimes charities create public goods.
I can't think of any productive job that doesn't fit into (at least) one of those three categories. There are some other ways that people make a living, but it's not productive, it's not beneficial to society, and it really isn't respectable. Some are criminal, such as a mugger. A beggar or a professional gambler might not be criminal, but neither does society benefit from their existence. They only redistribute what others have produced and do not produce anything themselves, and their redistribution is not done in a way that benefits society. They do not create anything to benefit society, but only impose costs and siphon off the things produced by others.
The problem with "play to earn" is, how is it productive? And if it's not, then where does the money to provide the earnings come from? Perhaps one could devise some clever play to earn model in which you're providing a service to the players who are paying you. Think of renting a group member for group content, for example.
Crypto-games where the "play to earn" is by selling NFTs don't have any real case for being productive. To the extent that they're creating axies or whatever the NFT is, the company that made the game could trivially produce millions of them. In the same sense, gold farmers do not do anything productive, but only redistribute resources in harmful ways. If generating gold were good for society or good for the game or whatever, then the company that made the game could trivially generate it and sell it themselves.
Thus, NFT-based play to earn is at best siphoning off labor to use it in unproductive ways, akin to panhandlers. Whether or not it works as a way to make money, it's bad for society. And in the long run, it's not going to work as a way to make money, either.
Charles Ponzi's key insight was that you can promise the same money to several people at once, and it looks like it works so long as no more than one of them tries to withdraw their money. If ten people each deposit $100 and you promise them that it's now worth $200, then you can pay out withdrawals from the collective pot and it seems to work until the sixth person tries to withdraw his money. The early people to take money out tell their friends, hey, this really works, and that leads more people to put money in. So long as money is coming in faster than it's going out, it seems like it works.
Until, at some point, money runs out and the scheme collapses. In a true Ponzi scheme, whoever is running the scheme typically sees the writing on the wall and disappears with the remaining net deposits without waiting for them to run dry. The point of running such a scam is to make money yourself, after all.
That's not likely to be the way that dodgy cryptocurrency based schemes end up. Rather, at some point, the value of what people thought they owned will drop precipitously. Once people realize that the value is going to keep dropping, no one will want to buy into an asset that everyone expects to lose value. That will only make it drop much faster. See what happened to Enron stock, for example.
And people are going to be seriously hurt by it. There will be people who put in $1000 up front, treated it as a job for months, thought they had $10000, and learn that it vanished and they can't even get back their initial $1000. They won't just be out their initial investment, but they'll also have lost the wages that they could have made in the meantime by getting a real job--or perhaps keeping the previous job that they quit because they thought "play to earn" worked better.
Totally agreed
There is Zero Value Added
Can anyone give me a tangible benefit to society? This is nothing but a nightmare to someone like me who pays 7 figures in tax every year.
Us small business owners pay tax and lots of it. The government is my silent partner and not by choice.
Let's back away from NFTs for a moment and ask why any job should pay anything at all. Well, why should it? The ultimate answer is that you get paid to do your job because your job does something that other people value. In a complex, modern economy, many jobs play some tiny role in doing something tremendously complicated. A lot of people play some tiny role in the creation of an iPhone, but ultimately, they're playing a role in creating something that people want and are willing to pay for.
There are basically three cases that I can think of where you can make a case that a job is productive:
1) Producing goods. An apple farmer does something or other, and then he has apples available to sell that didn't previously exist. If people want those apples because they need to eat to live, then the farmer has created something of value. Many other goods are much more complicated than this, but ultimately, you're creating an item that people want and are willing to pay for.
2) Delivering services. A barber doesn't create a haircut that can be put into a box and shipped across the country in the sense that a farmer does so with an apple. But still, creating services is fundamentally about doing something to help particular people enough that they're willing to pay for it without hurting others in the process. As with goods, many people play some small role in delivering complex services. People usually don't directly pay for, say, the janitor who cleans the bathrooms at a stadium, but that janitor does play an important role in making the entertainment service offered by the stadium actually work.
3) Creating public goods and preventing externalities. There are some things that, at a societal level, create more net benefit than the cost, but really can't be delivered by free markets where the people who benefit directly pay. The police officers who maintain order by preventing robberies and murders and so forth have an important role to play, even if they're not directly paid for particular goods or services that they provide to people. The same is true for a regulatory agency that prevents a society's drinking water from being poisoned. This is usually done by governments, though sometimes charities create public goods.
I can't think of any productive job that doesn't fit into (at least) one of those three categories. There are some other ways that people make a living, but it's not productive, it's not beneficial to society, and it really isn't respectable. Some are criminal, such as a mugger. A beggar or a professional gambler might not be criminal, but neither does society benefit from their existence. They only redistribute what others have produced and do not produce anything themselves, and their redistribution is not done in a way that benefits society. They do not create anything to benefit society, but only impose costs and siphon off the things produced by others.
The problem with "play to earn" is, how is it productive? And if it's not, then where does the money to provide the earnings come from? Perhaps one could devise some clever play to earn model in which you're providing a service to the players who are paying you. Think of renting a group member for group content, for example.
Crypto-games where the "play to earn" is by selling NFTs don't have any real case for being productive. To the extent that they're creating axies or whatever the NFT is, the company that made the game could trivially produce millions of them. In the same sense, gold farmers do not do anything productive, but only redistribute resources in harmful ways. If generating gold were good for society or good for the game or whatever, then the company that made the game could trivially generate it and sell it themselves.
Thus, NFT-based play to earn is at best siphoning off labor to use it in unproductive ways, akin to panhandlers. Whether or not it works as a way to make money, it's bad for society. And in the long run, it's not going to work as a way to make money, either.
Charles Ponzi's key insight was that you can promise the same money to several people at once, and it looks like it works so long as no more than one of them tries to withdraw their money. If ten people each deposit $100 and you promise them that it's now worth $200, then you can pay out withdrawals from the collective pot and it seems to work until the sixth person tries to withdraw his money. The early people to take money out tell their friends, hey, this really works, and that leads more people to put money in. So long as money is coming in faster than it's going out, it seems like it works.
Until, at some point, money runs out and the scheme collapses. In a true Ponzi scheme, whoever is running the scheme typically sees the writing on the wall and disappears with the remaining net deposits without waiting for them to run dry. The point of running such a scam is to make money yourself, after all.
That's not likely to be the way that dodgy cryptocurrency based schemes end up. Rather, at some point, the value of what people thought they owned will drop precipitously. Once people realize that the value is going to keep dropping, no one will want to buy into an asset that everyone expects to lose value. That will only make it drop much faster. See what happened to Enron stock, for example.
And people are going to be seriously hurt by it. There will be people who put in $1000 up front, treated it as a job for months, thought they had $10000, and learn that it vanished and they can't even get back their initial $1000. They won't just be out their initial investment, but they'll also have lost the wages that they could have made in the meantime by getting a real job--or perhaps keeping the previous job that they quit because they thought "play to earn" worked better.
Totally agreed
There is Zero Value Added
Can anyone give me a tangible benefit to society? This is nothing but a nightmare to someone like me who pays 7 figures in tax every year.
Us small business owners pay tax and lots of it. The government is my silent partner and not by choice.
Man that's a rough argument. What is the tangible benefit to gaming in society as a whole?
Crypto assets are in game assets. If you find value in a +1 sword of power in a non NFT game, then there's value of it in an NFT game.
The problem right now is that these values are inflated by developers. In a lot of games they set the prices. Every day in every game we as gamers give value to virtual objects in auction houses in games all across the spectrum.
Savvy players sell items for whatever they are going to sell for even if they are gouging other players, they don't care.
Now real money enters the equation. It isn't inherently a bad thing, but the way it is currently done, is off putting to a lot of players and I get that. In game items shouldn't be investments, they should be objects to be used in game for their intended purpose.
Can anyone give me a tangible benefit to society? This is nothing but a nightmare to someone like me who pays 7 figures in tax every year.
Us small business owners pay tax and lots of it. The government is my silent partner and not by choice.
Man that's a rough argument. What is the tangible benefit to gaming in society as a whole?
You really only need for there to be some benefit to someone else if you want that someone else to pay you to do something. If you want to stand on your head for half an hour, that doesn't benefit me, but that's fine, as I'm not paying you to do it. If you want me to pay you to do something, then you have to do something that I want or else I'll refuse to pay you.
Game developers commonly get paid because they create games that other people want to play. Those other people pay for the game, and benefit from the work that the developers did.
But people who play the games don't likewise have any claim that someone should pay them to play the game. That's not a problem unless you expect to get paid to play games. But that's pretty much what this thread is about: people wanting to get paid to play games.
Can anyone give me a tangible benefit to society? This is nothing but a nightmare to someone like me who pays 7 figures in tax every year.
Us small business owners pay tax and lots of it. The government is my silent partner and not by choice.
Man that's a rough argument. What is the tangible benefit to gaming in society as a whole?
Crypto assets are in game assets. If you find value in a +1 sword of power in a non NFT game, then there's value of it in an NFT game.
The problem right now is that these values are inflated by developers. In a lot of games they set the prices. Every day in every game we as gamers give value to virtual objects in auction houses in games all across the spectrum.
Savvy players sell items for whatever they are going to sell for even if they are gouging other players, they don't care.
Now real money enters the equation. It isn't inherently a bad thing, but the way it is currently done, is off putting to a lot of players and I get that. In game items shouldn't be investments, they should be objects to be used in game for their intended purpose.
We cut down the trees which make jobs in the lumber mill which in turn makes jobs in the housing industry which in turn makes jobs in the appliance industry ect. ect. ect. ect.
"Value Added"
This is a lose lose lose
Especially for someone like me who actually employs people in their own local community and not i some country half way across the world. All this shit is going to do is suck the wealth out of countries and I sure as fuck don't want that to be mine.
Laserit can correct me if I'm mistaken, but I think that his point is this.
There's nothing wrong with having a job that consists of playing some tiny role in creating tremendously complex goods and services. Indeed, the ability of capitalism to provide the proper incentives for people to organize themselves into ways that produce novel goods and services while benefiting everyone involved is the primary reason why the standard of living in much of the world is massively higher than it was centuries ago.
In order for it to work efficiently, however, everyone who is getting paid needs to add real value somewhere along the way. Everyone has to play a meaningful role in making the final goods or services a reality. What you're getting paid for at your job is your role in creating things that people want. That's true even if you don't fully understand your role in producing the final goods or services, or even if you don't know what the final goods or services are, as is common in a modern economy.
When choosing a job, most people don't put that much weight on how useful the final goods or services produced by their job is. Many people could not do so even if they wanted to because they don't know what the final products are. The copper miner does not understand all of the things that are done with copper, for example. At every step along the way, the companies involved use prices and purchasing decisions to communicate what they want and don't want.
Rather, people choosing a job look at the hours, whether they like the nature of the work, and especially the wages and benefits. If a job that is useless pays more than one that produces useful goods and services, then most people will do something useless. If a large fraction of society's labor is consumed by useless things that benefit no one, then that leaves much less labor available to produce the important goods and services that people actually want.
NFTs in games don't add value anywhere. They aren't part of building goods or services that people want. They don't contribute to the creation of public goods, and they don't do anything to reduce externalities. At a societal level, any labor used to create them is simply wasted.
Wasted labor like that is fine if you're doing something just for fun. This isn't an argument against playing computer games for fun. But if paid employment mostly consists of doing useless things, then the goods and services that people want won't get created. No one gets to use products that don't exist because they don't get built, and siphoning off labor for things that don't add value anywhere makes the world poorer. If cryptocurrencies drive large numbers of people to abandon jobs that pay well in favor of doing things that are useless, then that will be catastrophic for society.
Laserit can correct me if I'm mistaken, but I think that his point is this.
There's nothing wrong with having a job that consists of playing some tiny role in creating tremendously complex goods and services. Indeed, the ability of capitalism to provide the proper incentives for people to organize themselves into ways that produce novel goods and services while benefiting everyone involved is the primary reason why the standard of living in much of the world is massively higher than it was centuries ago.
In order for it to work efficiently, however, everyone who is getting paid needs to add real value somewhere along the way. Everyone has to play a meaningful role in making the final goods or services a reality. What you're getting paid for at your job is your role in creating things that people want. That's true even if you don't fully understand your role in producing the final goods or services, or even if you don't know what the final goods or services are, as is common in a modern economy.
When choosing a job, most people don't put that much weight on how useful the final goods or services produced by their job is. Many people could not do so even if they wanted to because they don't know what the final products are. The copper miner does not understand all of the things that are done with copper, for example. At every step along the way, the companies involved use prices and purchasing decisions to communicate what they want and don't want.
Rather, people choosing a job look at the hours, whether they like the nature of the work, and especially the wages and benefits. If a job that is useless pays more than one that produces useful goods and services, then most people will do something useless. If a large fraction of society's labor is consumed by useless things that benefit no one, then that leaves much less labor available to produce the important goods and services that people actually want.
NFTs in games don't add value anywhere. They aren't part of building goods or services that people want. They don't contribute to the creation of public goods, and they don't do anything to reduce externalities. At a societal level, any labor used to create them is simply wasted.
Wasted labor like that is fine if you're doing something just for fun. This isn't an argument against playing computer games for fun. But if paid employment mostly consists of doing useless things, then the goods and services that people want won't get created. No one gets to use products that don't exist because they don't get built, and siphoning off labor for things that don't add value anywhere makes the world poorer. If cryptocurrencies drive large numbers of people to abandon jobs that pay well in favor of doing things that are useless, then that will be catastrophic for society.
Earlier this year around the time of the gamestop amc phenomenon I was looking at the market and it dawned on me.
How wonderful is it be producing something that no one needs. You need a car. You need medicine. You need oil, tires, a phone.
No one needs movies. No one needs games. You don't have to go out and buy a movie. You don't have to go buy a game. We choose to go watch a movie. We choose to play games.
These producers aren't taking our money. We give to them freely, because we enjoy them. These types of business, I believe are the holy grail.
Laserit can correct me if I'm mistaken, but I think that his point is this.
There's nothing wrong with having a job that consists of playing some tiny role in creating tremendously complex goods and services. Indeed, the ability of capitalism to provide the proper incentives for people to organize themselves into ways that produce novel goods and services while benefiting everyone involved is the primary reason why the standard of living in much of the world is massively higher than it was centuries ago.
In order for it to work efficiently, however, everyone who is getting paid needs to add real value somewhere along the way. Everyone has to play a meaningful role in making the final goods or services a reality. What you're getting paid for at your job is your role in creating things that people want. That's true even if you don't fully understand your role in producing the final goods or services, or even if you don't know what the final goods or services are, as is common in a modern economy.
When choosing a job, most people don't put that much weight on how useful the final goods or services produced by their job is. Many people could not do so even if they wanted to because they don't know what the final products are. The copper miner does not understand all of the things that are done with copper, for example. At every step along the way, the companies involved use prices and purchasing decisions to communicate what they want and don't want.
Rather, people choosing a job look at the hours, whether they like the nature of the work, and especially the wages and benefits. If a job that is useless pays more than one that produces useful goods and services, then most people will do something useless. If a large fraction of society's labor is consumed by useless things that benefit no one, then that leaves much less labor available to produce the important goods and services that people actually want.
NFTs in games don't add value anywhere. They aren't part of building goods or services that people want. They don't contribute to the creation of public goods, and they don't do anything to reduce externalities. At a societal level, any labor used to create them is simply wasted.
Wasted labor like that is fine if you're doing something just for fun. This isn't an argument against playing computer games for fun. But if paid employment mostly consists of doing useless things, then the goods and services that people want won't get created. No one gets to use products that don't exist because they don't get built, and siphoning off labor for things that don't add value anywhere makes the world poorer. If cryptocurrencies drive large numbers of people to abandon jobs that pay well in favor of doing things that are useless, then that will be catastrophic for society.
I think you managed to piece that together from a variety of my rants Thank you Quiz
We as a society are losing sight of the basics and we don't realize how easily it can all fall down.
An algorithm isn't going to replace the reasons why we do it all for in the first place. There is a reason for civilization and it isn't so we can rip each other off.
Comments
edit: It’s real simple, people trust your money. It's all about trust. What are people trying to do with Crypto right now? Trying to undercut peoples trust in the USD.
When I purchase an expensive piece of machinery, I usually have to wait a minimum 9 months before delivery probably a lot longer today with these supply chain issues. When I sign the contract I have to worry about how much money that machine is going to cost me come delivery time.
For you it will be exactly the same price. Be careful what you wish for.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
They just chose to become Blockbuster. gg
Steam China much?
1. F2P can not have a buy in.... that is P2P.
2. Axies cost money to make, so people sell them at a cost greater than that amount.
If you are required to buy Axies, then it is not F2P (which is why I said someone will comeup with a F2P model).
Also, Axie Unlimited is not P2E because you can breed an sell Axies. It is P2E because you can EARN SLP by playing.
P2E is pretty new, and they are working out the details still. However, if it is done right, it is both scalable and provides a long term value. I remember when people were saying similar things about F2P (and still are). However, the reality is that this approach does add value, and as such will evolve to be the new standard.
https://fortune.com/2021/08/10/nft-rocks-200000/
$200k nft digital rocks.
Im not sure you guys see this. From marvel comics trying to ban its artist from selling their original work via nfts. to apple not allowing crypto purchases of nft through apps on their app store. to steam.
One reason and one reason only, complete 100% control of proceeds. (The exact oppisite of axie as we further examine) Moving forward we will see more of these stories over the next couple years from this old gaurd.
Think about this. Someone builds the exact same type of platform as steam, but the items steam now sells and gives are nfts and can traded freely among players. Trust me it's coming. Players will choose.
To your point about steam wallets, steam wallets are not used with these games. they would play 0 part in the transactions, thus the ban.
Players control their wallets in blockchain games. No 3rd party wanted or needed.
https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/news/marvel-and-dc-say-artists-cant-sell-nfts-of-their-superheroes
Marvel and DC Say Artists Can’t Sell NFTs of Their Superheroes
But the ban is seen as a serious impediment for artists who sell valuable collectibles based on derivative work of Marvel and DC characters — one that will prevent them from accessing an important source of revenue. To soften the blow, Marvel is apparently receptive to giving artists secondary revenue opportunities on VeVe, an app for digital collectibles."
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-art-copyright-explained
"So what rights are granted to an artist when it comes to copyright? And how can they affect those in possession of a physical work of art? Look no further than Section 106, Copyright Act of 1976, as amended, codified in Title 17 of the U.S. Code. For those in too much of a hurry, I’ll summarize: Copyright gives artists who have created fixed, tangible works a bundle of rights in those works. The rights provide both artistic protection and ensure that artists can profit from what they’ve made. After an artist creates a piece, they have the right to make copies of their work, distribute those copies, perform or display the work publicly, or make works that derive from the original."
And to the explanation of steam "wallet" there is 0 liquidity in it. I'm not ssure you understand how nft market places work. You don't have to trust me. I don't need your money either bud lol. Just remeber what you've been told.
Game developers need to make money. If only 10% of the people who "buy" your game pay you for it and the rest buy a "used" copy, then "buy to play" is not a viable business model. In that case, developers will have to find creative ways to either get whales to pay a ton of money or make sure that people who buy that used copy still have to pay to play it. For all of the nickel-and-diming of the most predatory of the "free to play" games to make its way into single-player offline desktop games would be a very bad thing.
Just take a minute and understand before you start in with your bullshit.
"This practice of comic artists selling their own artworks mostly dates back from the 70's in the USA. Prior to this artworks were retained by the publishers and sometime even destroyed by editors to clean up shelves space ! Neal Adams, the most influencial artist of the 70's was instrumental in ensuring that comic art where returned to the creators. It took him and other artists which joined this fight, nearly 20 years to have publishers returned all original artwork produced over work for hire terms. The market for original artwork really started to take off during the late 70's early 80's.
In Europe, work for hire in the intellectual business (movies, books, comics...) does not exist. So artist have always retained property of their art as well as that of the characters they created. Nevertheless original comic art sales started mostly again during the 70's. Sure the Pop Art movement (Wahrol Liechtenstein... )did a lot to shed light on this previously derided art form."
It's a HUGE market.
https://comicarttracker.com/marvel-comics-original-art-for-sale
That's why there's a problem.
Also, if you invent something for your employer while being paid, you have no rights to the patent.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
The two comics titans are cracking down on the ability of their comic book artists to sell NFTs of characters owned by each of those two companies.
Comic book artists argue that they have always been allowed to sell their artwork. However, the two companies said that artists are always allowed to sell their physical artworks, and not digital.
What's more, both DC and Marvel noted that the tradition of comic book artist being allowed to sell their original physical artworks are limited to works on pencil and ink arts, and have only existed as a "gift," of sorts, by the companies, and not a right.
Seems pretty complicated... I believe reference is important. This ban went into affect within the last few months.
We all are pretty lay on the of topic comic book art. Look closer at the term digital. Again reference is important. Nice read below.
https://www.pipelinecomics.com/nfts-will-dc-steal-ownership-of-comic-book-original-art/
Their interpretation of wonder woman, their interpretation of spider man.
Now DC and Marvel say they can not put those same drawings (pencil or digital) in NFT format.
In NFT format these comic book artist were selling these works and getting a royalty (programmed into the NFT) each time those 1 of 1 drawings were resold.
The royaty part is what DC and Marvel take umbrage with. DC and Marvel are cut out from that royalty.
Now that NFTs are becoming popular I hope that artists who have managed to get right to sell their original work would also get the right to create and sell a single NFT for each original work. It would be logical extension to their right and good additional benefit for them.
However creating a NFT means that you're creating a copy, and the artists have never had right to create and sell copies of their works, just the originals. As it is the large media companies are being consistent about that, and it's the artist who want to sell NFTs who are trying to get additional right to do something they've never been allowed to.
good stuff mmorpg.com crew.
There are basically three cases that I can think of where you can make a case that a job is productive:
1) Producing goods. An apple farmer does something or other, and then he has apples available to sell that didn't previously exist. If people want those apples because they need to eat to live, then the farmer has created something of value. Many other goods are much more complicated than this, but ultimately, you're creating an item that people want and are willing to pay for.
2) Delivering services. A barber doesn't create a haircut that can be put into a box and shipped across the country in the sense that a farmer does so with an apple. But still, creating services is fundamentally about doing something to help particular people enough that they're willing to pay for it without hurting others in the process. As with goods, many people play some small role in delivering complex services. People usually don't directly pay for, say, the janitor who cleans the bathrooms at a stadium, but that janitor does play an important role in making the entertainment service offered by the stadium actually work.
3) Creating public goods and preventing externalities. There are some things that, at a societal level, create more net benefit than the cost, but really can't be delivered by free markets where the people who benefit directly pay. The police officers who maintain order by preventing robberies and murders and so forth have an important role to play, even if they're not directly paid for particular goods or services that they provide to people. The same is true for a regulatory agency that prevents a society's drinking water from being poisoned. This is usually done by governments, though sometimes charities create public goods.
I can't think of any productive job that doesn't fit into (at least) one of those three categories. There are some other ways that people make a living, but it's not productive, it's not beneficial to society, and it really isn't respectable. Some are criminal, such as a mugger. A beggar or a professional gambler might not be criminal, but neither does society benefit from their existence. They only redistribute what others have produced and do not produce anything themselves, and their redistribution is not done in a way that benefits society. They do not create anything to benefit society, but only impose costs and siphon off the things produced by others.
The problem with "play to earn" is, how is it productive? And if it's not, then where does the money to provide the earnings come from? Perhaps one could devise some clever play to earn model in which you're providing a service to the players who are paying you. Think of renting a group member for group content, for example.
Crypto-games where the "play to earn" is by selling NFTs don't have any real case for being productive. To the extent that they're creating axies or whatever the NFT is, the company that made the game could trivially produce millions of them. In the same sense, gold farmers do not do anything productive, but only redistribute resources in harmful ways. If generating gold were good for society or good for the game or whatever, then the company that made the game could trivially generate it and sell it themselves.
Thus, NFT-based play to earn is at best siphoning off labor to use it in unproductive ways, akin to panhandlers. Whether or not it works as a way to make money, it's bad for society. And in the long run, it's not going to work as a way to make money, either.
Charles Ponzi's key insight was that you can promise the same money to several people at once, and it looks like it works so long as no more than one of them tries to withdraw their money. If ten people each deposit $100 and you promise them that it's now worth $200, then you can pay out withdrawals from the collective pot and it seems to work until the sixth person tries to withdraw his money. The early people to take money out tell their friends, hey, this really works, and that leads more people to put money in. So long as money is coming in faster than it's going out, it seems like it works.
Until, at some point, money runs out and the scheme collapses. In a true Ponzi scheme, whoever is running the scheme typically sees the writing on the wall and disappears with the remaining net deposits without waiting for them to run dry. The point of running such a scam is to make money yourself, after all.
That's not likely to be the way that dodgy cryptocurrency based schemes end up. Rather, at some point, the value of what people thought they owned will drop precipitously. Once people realize that the value is going to keep dropping, no one will want to buy into an asset that everyone expects to lose value. That will only make it drop much faster. See what happened to Enron stock, for example.
And people are going to be seriously hurt by it. There will be people who put in $1000 up front, treated it as a job for months, thought they had $10000, and learn that it vanished and they can't even get back their initial $1000. They won't just be out their initial investment, but they'll also have lost the wages that they could have made in the meantime by getting a real job--or perhaps keeping the previous job that they quit because they thought "play to earn" worked better.
There is Zero Value Added
Can anyone give me a tangible benefit to society? This is nothing but a nightmare to someone like me who pays 7 figures in tax every year.
Us small business owners pay tax and lots of it. The government is my silent partner and not by choice.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Crypto assets are in game assets. If you find value in a +1 sword of power in a non NFT game, then there's value of it in an NFT game.
The problem right now is that these values are inflated by developers. In a lot of games they set the prices. Every day in every game we as gamers give value to virtual objects in auction houses in games all across the spectrum.
Savvy players sell items for whatever they are going to sell for even if they are gouging other players, they don't care.
Now real money enters the equation. It isn't inherently a bad thing, but the way it is currently done, is off putting to a lot of players and I get that. In game items shouldn't be investments, they should be objects to be used in game for their intended purpose.
Game developers commonly get paid because they create games that other people want to play. Those other people pay for the game, and benefit from the work that the developers did.
But people who play the games don't likewise have any claim that someone should pay them to play the game. That's not a problem unless you expect to get paid to play games. But that's pretty much what this thread is about: people wanting to get paid to play games.
"Value Added"
This is a lose lose lose
Especially for someone like me who actually employs people in their own local community and not i some country half way across the world. All this shit is going to do is suck the wealth out of countries and I sure as fuck don't want that to be mine.
and yes that is Rough but its the Truth
imho
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
There's nothing wrong with having a job that consists of playing some tiny role in creating tremendously complex goods and services. Indeed, the ability of capitalism to provide the proper incentives for people to organize themselves into ways that produce novel goods and services while benefiting everyone involved is the primary reason why the standard of living in much of the world is massively higher than it was centuries ago.
In order for it to work efficiently, however, everyone who is getting paid needs to add real value somewhere along the way. Everyone has to play a meaningful role in making the final goods or services a reality. What you're getting paid for at your job is your role in creating things that people want. That's true even if you don't fully understand your role in producing the final goods or services, or even if you don't know what the final goods or services are, as is common in a modern economy.
When choosing a job, most people don't put that much weight on how useful the final goods or services produced by their job is. Many people could not do so even if they wanted to because they don't know what the final products are. The copper miner does not understand all of the things that are done with copper, for example. At every step along the way, the companies involved use prices and purchasing decisions to communicate what they want and don't want.
Rather, people choosing a job look at the hours, whether they like the nature of the work, and especially the wages and benefits. If a job that is useless pays more than one that produces useful goods and services, then most people will do something useless. If a large fraction of society's labor is consumed by useless things that benefit no one, then that leaves much less labor available to produce the important goods and services that people actually want.
NFTs in games don't add value anywhere. They aren't part of building goods or services that people want. They don't contribute to the creation of public goods, and they don't do anything to reduce externalities. At a societal level, any labor used to create them is simply wasted.
Wasted labor like that is fine if you're doing something just for fun. This isn't an argument against playing computer games for fun. But if paid employment mostly consists of doing useless things, then the goods and services that people want won't get created. No one gets to use products that don't exist because they don't get built, and siphoning off labor for things that don't add value anywhere makes the world poorer. If cryptocurrencies drive large numbers of people to abandon jobs that pay well in favor of doing things that are useless, then that will be catastrophic for society.
How wonderful is it be producing something that no one needs. You need a car. You need medicine. You need oil, tires, a phone.
No one needs movies. No one needs games. You don't have to go out and buy a movie. You don't have to go buy a game. We choose to go watch a movie. We choose to play games.
These producers aren't taking our money. We give to them freely, because we enjoy them. These types of business, I believe are the holy grail.
We as a society are losing sight of the basics and we don't realize how easily it can all fall down.
An algorithm isn't going to replace the reasons why we do it all for in the first place. There is a reason for civilization and it isn't so we can rip each other off.
imho
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee