• pjwestin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    46
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    3 days ago

    Oh, it’s gonna be so much worse. NFTs mostly just ruined sad crypto bros who were dumb enough to buy a picture of an ape. Companies are investing heavily in generative AI projects without establishing a proper use case or even its basic efficacy. ChatGPTs newest iterations are getting worse; no one has a solution to hallucinations; the energy costs are astronomical; the entire process relies on plagiarism and copyright infringement, and even if you get by all of that, consumers hate it. AI ads are met derision or revulsion, and AI customer service is universally despised.

    This isn’t like NFTs. It’s more like Facebook and VR. Sure, VR has its uses, but investing heavily in unnecessary and unwanted VR tools cost Facebook billions. The difference is that when this bubble bursts, instead of just hitting Facebook, this is going to hit every single tech company.

      • pjwestin@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        3 days ago

        Everyone I know shuts off AI features on their software, yet they keep adding it to more and more software. It’s like the exact opposite of supply and demand.

        • figjam@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          3 days ago

          My favorite was the security tools with their new AI data protection features. “We scan your data and put it in AI to keep it safe from AI!”

    • quoll@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 days ago

      hit every single tech company.

      and institutional investors who steward pleb money… so its going hurt real.

      • pjwestin@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 days ago

        Oh yeah, it’s gonna be massive. I don’t know if this will be as bad as the subprime mortgage crisis, but it’s gonna come soon, and with all the tariff instability, it’s gonna hit while the economy is already weak. It’s gonna suck.

    • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      19
      ·
      3 days ago

      You do realize nfts were capable of so much more than pictures but because that was the lowest effort use case that’s what the scammers started with, right?

      Of course not, you just like shitting on things other people designate as safe to shit on

      • Bilb!@lem.monster
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        3 days ago

        I have never heard of one realistic and useful plan for NFTs. And I like to be contrarian whenever possible, since I’m kind of a smug prick. Hit me with 'em!

        • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          3 days ago

          At the very basic level NFTs programatically enact contract law in a perfectly transparent way that cannot be faked

          The use cases for this aren’t normally apparent to the average consumer because of habit more than anything. I will give some use cases

          A limited access club can mint NFTs for membership, allowing the holders to personally trade their access in a transparent way and provides an encrypted method functionally equivalent to a One Time Pad (One of the most, if not the MOST secure encryption method in existence) so building access can be transferred instantly between rights holders, as well as providing a secure inherent messaging between members

          This can also be generalized for apartment access. Need a place to stay? You can purchase the tenant NFT from the current renter, and have access to the property securely within seconds

          I use these examples because they are human friendly but the BEST use of NFTs is programatic resource management for automated purchasing systems (which are going to be a FUCKING HUGE THING now that LLMs have got access to the big money), for example:

          Lets say a LLM is tasked with constantly sourcing the cheapest source of tin for industrial processes, and that all the tin producers set lots of raw material as NFTs. (In this case it isn’t an ideal use as the lots are not unique, but the underlying programatic contract execution doesn’t care and treats them as unique) so the LLM calculates shipping and price and automatically buys lots of NFTs to match the need, which ship out from a port halfway around the world that afternoon

          Now 2 days into the 12 day shipping time, the LLM notices that there is a sudden need for tin closer to the current ship location than the initial destination and contacts the LLM of the company that posted the tin need, and offers the lots of NFTs on the ship, the other LLM agrees and the contract is made, the ownership of those lots are altered, the shipping manifest of the cargo vessel is updated and the shipping route may or may not be altered based on the judgment of the LLM handling the cargo ship. All of this happens in a matter of seconds. Once the transaction is complete, the original LLM now goes and searches for another source of tin

          The biggest benefit of NFTs is reducing the friction of complex logistic changes allowing companies to find advantages that pass too quickly for humans to notice or make best use of in a way that can be legally as binding as any other signed contract in a court of law.

          There are other benefits and use cases, some silly and some abstract but NFTs are so much more than a link to an png on a file server somewhere but that’s ALL people like you will ever know them for because scammers ruined the name while real devs were still working on useful products.

          • heraplem@leminal.space
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            edit-2
            3 days ago

            A limited access club can mint NFTs for membership, allowing the holders to personally trade their access in a transparent way and provides an encrypted method functionally equivalent to a One Time Pad (One of the most, if not the MOST secure encryption method in existence) so building access can be transferred instantly between rights holders, as well as providing a secure inherent messaging between members

            You can do this with a database.

            This can also be generalized for apartment access. Need a place to stay? You can purchase the tenant NFT from the current renter, and have access to the property securely within seconds

            You can do this with a PIN code.

            Lets say a LLM is tasked with constantly sourcing the cheapest source of tin for industrial processes, and that all the tin producers set lots of raw material as NFTs. (In this case it isn’t an ideal use as the lots are not unique, but the underlying programatic contract execution doesn’t care and treats them as unique) so the LLM calculates shipping and price and automatically buys lots of NFTs to match the need, which ship out from a port halfway around the world that afternoon

            Now 2 days into the 12 day shipping time, the LLM notices that there is a sudden need for tin closer to the current ship location than the initial destination and contacts the LLM of the company that posted the tin need, and offers the lots of NFTs on the ship, the other LLM agrees and the contract is made, the ownership of those lots are altered, the shipping manifest of the cargo vessel is updated and the shipping route may or may not be altered based on the judgment of the LLM handling the cargo ship. All of this happens in a matter of seconds. Once the transaction is complete, the original LLM now goes and searches for another source of tin

            You can do this with databases.

            The biggest benefit of NFTs is reducing the friction of complex logistic changes allowing companies to find advantages that pass too quickly for humans to notice or make best use of in a way that can be legally as binding as any other signed contract in a court of law.

            In any situation where you might be tempted to call an NFT “legally binding”, it’s not the NFT that’s binding, it’s a contract, and the NFT is just a proxy for the contract. The NFT adds no value.

            • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              3 days ago

              You can do this with databases.

              Blockchain is a database. One that everyone automatically can access. The advantage is that you don’t need an admin console. There is no complex on-board and control of users.

            • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              2 days ago

              You can do this with a database.

              Yes because blockchain is a database. What it brings that other databases CANNOT is 1) Unfalsifiability baked in to the product at a fundamental level and 2) A universal framework for enacting contracts that are secure enough to use in court as a legally binding document (adobe paid and passed on to the customer a ridiculous cost to make their product compliant with this, for blockchain it is already baked in

              You can do this with a PIN code.

              A horse will take you to the grocery store too, but the NFT of the apartment also comes with the legal documents that show you are the valid resident unlike just a pin code. This also protects the customer from brokers and services from using illegal subletting as you can only get the ‘pin’ from the last valid owner, and that access can be traced back to the initial moment the property entered the blockchain. Also in court, discovery is stupidly easy as all transactions are public and secure

              You can do this with databases.

              Yes and every company has their own database system and almost NONE of them talk to each other and none of them are public ledgers and absolutely none of them operate on consensus polling, meaning trust needs to be established directly, custom APIs need to be crafted for every paired trade instance. Nearly every blockchain comes with that baked in, and has been actively tested and attacked for a decade and a half with zero failure of the underlying blockchain technology.

              it’s not the NFT that’s binding, it’s a contract, and the NFT is just a proxy for the contract. The NFT adds no value.

              The NFT IS a contract, this is what you are missing, and the value it adds is immense which I have demonstrated thoroughly in counter to every weakass claim you have made and you still adamantly refuse to admit your failures

              You are so welded to your meme identity it blinds you to a useful and functional thing

          • Bilb!@lem.monster
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            3 days ago

            I’m just not sure what utility this has for a traveler. You don’t need NFTs to implement transferrable plane tickets, though this does seem to try to ensure that the airline(?) gets a cut of any sales between passengers. It’s the same pattern every time with NFTs, the only thing they seem to do is complicate matters while attempting to make a market out of thin air and take a cut of any related transactions.

            No major US airline allows passengers to transfer tickets, and I don’t think it’s because they lack the technology to do so and NFTs would fill the void. If they did do this and it was possible to buy and sell plane tickets on an open blockchain based market, couldn’t one just buy all of the tickets for popular flights and sell them at a markup?

            • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              3 days ago

              No major US airline allows passengers to transfer tickets

              This is because US airlines are legally allowed to sell more seats than they have on a flight. Talk about overcomplication.

              couldn’t one just buy all of the tickets for popular flights and sell them at a markup?

              One could, but there would be a risk of not being able to sell them. Airlines would be taking a cut so they don’t mind, and they sell all their seats.

            • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              5
              ·
              3 days ago

              You know a guy who first saw the new fangled automobiles once said ‘That’s all well and good, but where do you attach the horse?’

              You don’t NEED the internet, or digital transactions, or credit cards, or any of the other dozens of technological advancements in wealth management that have come about since the 50s either but they exist and make everyone’s lives easier

              Tickets as NFTs are a great idea because it absolutely prevents overbooking. Did you ever even consider that? Can’t mint more NFTs than the plane has seats

              • Bilb!@lem.monster
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                5
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                3 days ago

                You know a guy who first saw the new fangled automobiles once said ‘That’s all well and good, but where do you attach the horse?’

                Sure, but this is not a positive argument for your position. This does not mean that everything with doubters is, in fact, good and misunderstood.

                Tickets as NFTs are a great idea because it absolutely prevents overbooking. Did you ever even consider that? Can’t mint more NFTs than the plane has seats

                You can prevent overbooking without blockchain/NFTs. Airlines overbook because they want to, and presumably they would still want to do so if they adopted NFT tickets. There is nothing about using blockchain that would prevent this, they would just mint more NFTs than there are seats for each flight with the hope/expectation that a few ticket holders would not show up.

                • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  3 days ago

                  Sure, but this is not a positive argument for your position.

                  So now you’re just going to discount the time I spent setting you up several use cases?

                  You can prevent overbooking without blockchain/NFTs. Airlines overbook because they want to,

                  And the reason for their overbooking, maximum profit, would be achieved seamlessly with a blockchain based ticketing system as there is no human input lag that causes double booking

                  You keep arguing that there are other ways of doing the things that the programatic nature of NFT contracts offer but NONE of them provide it all in one ridiculously transparent, unfalsifiable open source way that can be literally implemented on every platform

                  That’s why I used the car and the horse example, you are the one saying: “Yes we already have horses already, why do we need a car? And how would a horse even USE a car you silly billy?”

                  The really sad thing is I’m waiting for a moment of realization from you that it is blatantly clear you are incapable of achieving. Pretending to be open minded is intellectually dishonest

                  • Bilb!@lem.monster
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    3
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    3 days ago

                    So now you’re just going to discount the time I spent setting you up several use cases?

                    I didn’t thoughtlessly discount anything, I’m just saying that while “some people didn’t see how cars could be useful” is true, it does not mean that everything that has doubters is actually a misunderstood wonder. Plenty of things with fervent true believers that have been supposed to change everything were, in fact, duds.

                    And the reason for their overbooking, maximum profit, would be achieved seamlessly with a blockchain based ticketing system as there is no human input lag that causes double booking

                    Human input lag is not generally the cause of overbooking. The overbooking is intentional. NFTs have no unique ability to prevent it. This is not a tech problem, and so it cannot be solved by tech. I’m open to the possibility that airline tickets are just a bad example, of course, and it wasn’t even an example you presented.

                    You keep arguing that there are other ways of doing the things that the programatic nature of NFT contracts offer but NONE of them provide it all in one ridiculously transparent, unfalsifiable open source way that can be literally implemented on every platform

                    This is all rather vague. The benefits are not obvious, so you need to be more specific.

                    That’s why I used the car and the horse example, you are the one saying: “Yes we already have horses already, why do we need a car? And how would a horse even USE a car you silly billy?”

                    You might be the one who is saying “the hyperloop will change travel forever!” Everything you’re writing seems like vague motivated reasoning presupposing that NFTs are the solution to problems that you don’t even seem to understand.

                    The really sad thing is I’m waiting for a moment of realization from you that it is blatantly clear you are incapable of achieving. Pretending to be open minded is intellectually dishonest

                    😏

              • pyre@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                5
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                3 days ago

                interesting, around here we do it with numbered seats. if you give each seat a specific number turns out you can match that with numbered tickets. somehow airlines don’t make tickets with numbers that don’t match with any seats. insane tech.

              • pjwestin@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                2 days ago

                Yeah, but if your only example of NFTs being useful is that one of the worst airlines in the industry adopted them, that’s not a great argument. “Shitty company uses system, so system must be useful,” doesn’t really track.

                • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  2 days ago

                  Someone has to go first. A low cost airline adopted them to avoid the hassles and inefficiencies of overbooking flights.

                  There are also lots of B2B uses of NFTs, mainly around supply chain and energy tracking, but I thought a B2C example would resonate better here.

                  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    2 days ago

                    Well, first, I’m very skeptical of the NFTs’ ability to resolve overbooking. Overbooking is a choice airlines make to maximize profits. We could force airlines to stop overbooking tomorrow if we wanted, and they could try to prevent losses by making tickets non-refundable or charging extra for refundable tickets (tactics they already use in addition to overbooking). It seems to me the main problem is that capitalism motivates airlines to maximize profits instead of transporting people to their destination. The obvious solution to me is to nationalize the airlines, not create a third-party aftermarket for airline tickets.

                    Also, the article you shared actually makes no mention of overbooking. I have to assume the solution being suggested by NFT tickets is something along the lines of, “We sell only the amount of tickets on the flight, and while we won’t refund your ticket, if you can’t make your flight, you’re free to sell your ticket to whoever you like.”

                    Seems like a decent enough idea, except that you need to go through the third-party NFT company to sell your ticket, you may lose value on your ticket or even not find a buyer, and you still need to make any changes to your ticket 72 hours in advance, meaning it would be useless in resolving no-shows from flight delays. You also wind up paying a transaction fee to the NFT company and the airline for any changes you make, so really it seems what’s being suggested here is that, instead of being able to get a refund on your ticket, you do the job of selling your own ticket on the free-market, and both the ticket company and airline profit from your labor. And again, since this article makes no mention of overbooking, I have to assume Flybondi will continue that practice anyway.

                    I also have to point out that this article was written by and unnamed, “crypto believer,” and self-published in Medium by an NFT company. It’s not exactly a great source.

                    All that being said, I’m sure there are uses for NFTs, just like their are uses for generative AI and VR. My point isn’t that they’re useless, just that their uses are overstated and create a financial bubble. I can see how generative AI might be useful first-draft copywriting, but it’s not capable of replacing a writers room, or even giving accurate search results. VR is great for gaming, but no matter how much money Zuckerberg threw at it, it couldn’t do anything for meetings that Zoom didn’t do better. I’m not sure what the B2B uses of NFTs are, but I believe you when you tell me they exist; they just couldn’t create value for random JPEGs. The NFT collapse bankrupted a bunch of crypto-bros, Zuckerberg’s VR investment cost Facebook $60 billion, and the generative AI bubble is going to hit every single tech company and the stock market as a whole.

          • uranibaba@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            3 days ago

            The most be something I don’t understand. Why would I buy flight tickets from a third party? Is there a market for this?

            • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              3 days ago

              The idea is to allow efficient resale of airline seats (and for the airline to take a cut of that secondary market). Also proves to buyers that their flight is nor overbooked.

            • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              3 days ago

              If you book through a travel agency or website, you are already buying 3rd party

              NFTs would prevent 3rd parties from overselling flights (this is a big problem actually and is borderline fraud)

      • pjwestin@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 days ago

        Yeah, I heard about most of the supposed uses in the 10 paragraphs you wrote. Anyway, since none of those came to pass, and instead a bunch or people went bankrupt buying pictures of monkeys, I’d say the usefulness of NFTs has been determined.

        • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          2 days ago

          You know, when reddit first started, no one minded long replies, in fact they were considered a mark of excellence and understanding. Long, accurate replies were almost always the top comment in non-meme subs.

          Then smart phones became popular and every idiot gained access to the web

          Suddenly, around 2012, you started seeing comments disparaging long replies as being ‘nerdy’ or ‘tryhard’. On FUCKING reddit, the HOME of the nerds!

          It was a real emotional whiplash to me for a place that once welcomed detailed discussion to start mocking users for creating quality reply content

          That’s when I realized the internet was fucked because of people like you.

          • pjwestin@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 days ago

            You know, when reddit first started, no one minded long replies, in fact they were considered a mark of excellence and understanding.

            First of all, thank you for this. It is quite possibly the funniest sentence I’ve ever read on the internet, and I will be laughing at it for the rest of the day. The gamatical errors really give it an extra layer. Absolute perfection.

            Second, quantity isn’t quality, especially when it comes to writing. If it was, editor wouldn’t be a job. The length of your comment doesn’t change the fact that it is mostly pro-NFT arguments I heard in 2023, none of which materialized. Oh, NFTs could give you instant access to an apartment? That’s super helpful in a world where lockboxes don’t exist!

            Finally, despite your assumption, I don’t actually think long comments are bad; I just left a very long comment to someone who said something that was actually interesting. You also assumed I was insulting NFTs because I, “just like shitting on things other people designate as safe to shit on.” But I actually didn’t insult NFTs, I just pointed out that it bankrupted a bunch of crypto-bros. Which isn’t an opinion, its just a thing that happened. If you want to know what I actually think of NFTs, I answered that when I replied to the more interesting commenter. You’re welcome to go read it instead of making incorrect assumptions.

            Anyway, if you don’t like the quality of the replies you’re getting, maybe consider the quality of the comments you’re leaving. Maybe you shouldn’t expect someone to listen to you or engage with you in good faith when you start off by insulting them. Maybe the problem is you, not everyone else.