Comment on I wish there were more articles about tech not tech biz
rglullis@communick.news 6 months agoThe annoying thing with these reductionist views is that they miss the potential applications.
“JPEGs in the blockchain” is indeed a pointless use case and were so hyped because of greed and a ZIRP world. This doesn’t mean that all applications built on top of NFTs are worthless. For example, one could see a well-thought ticketing system based on NFTs that could destroy Ticketmaster.
Womble@lemmy.world 6 months ago
No it couldn’t, it provides nothing that a few database tables couldn’t. NFTs themselves are essentially just pointers to things that can be traded, you are always going to be entirely at the mercy of whatever system is deciding what is being pointed to.
rglullis@communick.news 6 months ago
Transparent consensus about the data can not be achieved with a few database tables.
You could make the argument that this does need a blockchain and it could be built on another decentralized consensus protocol (like Paxos), but then you’d lose the permissionless aspect of it and such a system would likely end up being control by a monopoly or oligopoly, like the whole ticketing industry is controlled by Ticketmaster today.
The ticketing use case could work precisely because a ticket is just a pointer. Access to the actual venue/seat would still need to be verified in person, but the issuing of tickets and transactions in the primary/secondary markets are the nasty parts that are exploited by Ticketmaster and gives them so much moat.
Womble@lemmy.world 6 months ago
and why is that needed?
And someone in the real world has to look at that and let the person through the door, now does the ticket being an NFT help that at all compared to a database entry with a ticket ID tied to a name and requiring ID? Come to think of it, an NFT would just encourage scalping as they are inherantly tradeable and so vulnerable to buying by anonymous accounts and then reselling.
rglullis@communick.news 6 months ago
Make the smart contract that forbids multiple transfers, or make transfer more expensive after the initial purchase (unless authorized by some pre-approved address and/or an address that has an associated real ID)
Because we’d like to have a system that can not be manipulated or controlled by a single entity?