Comment by shimmeringleaf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shimmeringleaf | Hacker News Reader

As an artist who has been able to survive the pandemic in part due to NFTs, honestly, nothing is that bad about them per se. That said there are a couple of points worth noting:

- as an artist when I sell an NFT it's the equivalent of selling conceptual art, the recipient basically buys the "certificate of authenticity" that states that this work, together with the certificate of ownership constitutes the original work. This isn't too different from a certificate of authenticity often issued with a print or painting, just suitably modified to the digital space. I mean, there are a million Van Gogh reproductions, some even eerily well forged, but only the painting with its certificate is the original work. Doesn't mean the rest of the world can't enjoy the reproductions.

- It helps me make ends meet as an artist and is a way for collectors to support that, especially important for digital artists whose works traditionally have suffered form being turned into static prints, for example.

- the POW issue re: sustainability is an ugly one, thankfully there alternatives with POS, but it's important to remember not everyone can afford to be too principled, sometimes you have to go where people are offering what you need to pay this months rent, not where you'd like to go.

- NFTs are massively hyped and have yet to be a better alternative to anything, that said they have helped a lot of artists survive the pandemic, they aren't a way of getting rich quick, or at least for 99% they aren't heh (but that's no different form the traditional art world).

The intro reads like:

As a salesman who’s been able to survive the pandemic thanks to selling multilevel marketing schemes, honestly nothing is bad about them per say.

I don’t understand why it is that people have this inherent attitude that “it’s good when artists get money, no matter what”. I mean fair enough if you sell some art, but that’s not what NFTs are, they are risky investments bought because of the investment aspect. And while yes, as they say “in an up market there are no losers” it still might be the case that the losers will show if it collapses just like any Ponzi scheme or pyramid organization, and that will leave all the “suckers” at a loss. And I can’t agree that this is all ok simply because the snake oil salesmen where also artists this time around and not just selling certificates allowing others to sell water filters.

Yeah, I mean personally the only artists I know who have experimented with NFTs seem to have continued operating at a loss with no concrete hope of making back the money they've spent on minting fees etc.

I don't want this to be the narrative but I've been consistently reminded of the small number of people I've known / worked with in the past with who get into buying lottery tickets and / or scratchers. It's never people who are in a position to burn money and it seems like it turns into a long-term commitment / compulsion that is really hard to understand but also not something that seems like it should be judged too harshly either.

Yeah, this is the sadder "it isn't a silver bullet" part, I've found it's a lot more productive to have the same mental expectations as selling a physical print: you need to have a community of people who like, want to support and/or collect your work. This has always been the case, even before NFTs, if you don't work on your visibility, community and reach, the chances of people randomly stumbling over your work and collecting it are ... slim. This is why I never recommend anyone to go all-in on NFTs, but rather choose a platform ala hicetnunc (or its now many variants and mirrors) with very low minting fees and double down on building community rather than burning a lot of money on sales.

What has made NFTs interesting to me, who as a digital artist has to "give away" their work daily just to stay visible in social media, is that it allows for also the non-physical manifestation of the work to have "value". That is to say I don't have to go through all the complexity and expense of producing a physical print in order for the jpeg to be considered "worth collecting".

But yeah, it's not a get-rich-quick deal, it's still just as tricky as the old-school art market..

This is definitely a refreshing / important perspective to hear. It's one I haven't actually heard yet from any other practicing artists and it makes me feel a little better / less hopeless about my friends who are dumping money into minting fees.

> they have helped a lot of artists survive the pandemic

Not an attempt to call-out or anything but just curious roughly how many artists you personally know that fall into this category.

So, I know personally about 5-7 artists (closer circle), who have managed to pull through thanks to being able to sell works via NFTs (as all normal income sources like exhibitions and events got shuttered by the repeated lockdowns). I'm only counting artists who are full-time artists here, btw, and who don't have a day-job/other revenue streams, there are a lot more of them and and since it's a lot harder to gauge the impact NFTs there I'm not going to count them.

No-one's gotten rich, heh, but they've managed to keep paying rent and keep making art, which is what I think is the most important for them (and for those who love their work).

As I mentioned in another comment in this thread, there are platforms where minting fees are a lot lower, the crucial bit that rarely gets talked about is that minting into the void without a community and visibility will most likely not get you very far. Building a community around your art is the key bit, then naturally some people will want to collect or support you if you offer different ways to do so. NFTs are by themselves no solution to anything if the same bits you need to survive in the traditional art market aren't there at all either.

Thats pretty cool. A friend of mine is pretty artistic and I've mentioned NFT's to her before. Any tips on how one might get started as an artist making them?

I've heard a bit about Solana nft's having much lower transaction fee's. Have you see anything going on in the Solana NFT space? Seems like that might be better for making them if you were a creator.

Also any recommendations for crypto/nft aggregators or communities?

I'd say, be an artist first and focus on building a community engaged in your art first, just becoming an "NFT artist" (shudder) probably won't do much for her, but if she can share and engage people in her art and then also offer ways for them to support her practice it may work.

It's important to have realistic expectations. When I first started out as an artist I made physical prints ... and nothing sold for, like, two years and I had to do commercial gigs I disliked to make ends meet. If then was now and instead I minted NFTs ... I expect the same would happen. Basically nobody apart from my family and a couple of friends even saw I had prints available because no-one knew I existed. As such NFTs are the same as the old art market, you need to be visible and have a proper community before they can be relied upon as a revenue source (a lot of "traditional" artists can rely on sales of paintings/prints as they produce them).

I'm not personally familiar with Solana, but I've good experiences with tezos (POS (way more eco friendly), very low minting fees) platforms like hicetnunc.

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