For fine art, maybe? For music, writing, theater, film and television, video games: seems like it's mostly about the enjoyment the patron gets from interacting with the art. The social signaling part strikes me as kind of squicky.

Maybe NFTs turn out to be a way to redirect that gross status-seeking impulse, to turn it into incentives to create art and income for artists without copyright, DRM, and associated ugliness. That would be a pretty cool hack! There's a decent chance it works.