These keep popping all the time on HN recently and I don't like it. We had our fun taking jabs at people buying virtual receipts but nowadays it feels everyone wants to join the smug train. I'd appreciate some moderation on these articles (as in having much less of them around here).

Yeah, we know: people basically give money for a small receipt that says "this thing is mine", ignoring the fact that the paper of that receipt might spontaneously disappear one day. We got it.

So what? People literally bought paper strips absolving them from their sins some mere centuries ago. People do all sorts of stuff we don't immediately relate to.

IMO the pertinent question around the NFT (and the general Web3 / dapps etc.) frenzy is just one:

"If people want to buy stuff you don't like, well, let them, how does it harm you?"

If that's not properly answered and if you can't prove to me that's going to hit me in my wallet later on (and I mean no later than the next 2-3 years) then we're just taking turns of making fun of people whose needs we don't understand.

Example: I am not bashing anyone who is buying a Bentley. To me that's unnecessary and expensive but to them it's likely super important and that's the salient point here: you don't know these other people's needs and you don't understand WHAT exactly they are buying with their money. I would think they are buying an ugly overpriced car but they might be buying it e.g. so they are allowed in new circles which need demonstration of status?

I am posting this comment as a guy who single-handedly coded the entire backend of a Web3 app some mere 3 months ago and has seen the absurdity of people flocking to buy NFTs due to a good slogan on a website (hosted on Web 1.0 / 2.0 no less). But in the end I get it; a lot of NFTs are presented in the form of campaigns to support or champion a cause, and others are marketed at being unique and deserving of status, etc.

Good marketing, appealing to certain human traits, and people open up their wallets. Why not?

Not for me personally but I am not judging. In the end I am the guy who bought Airpods Max ($540) just so he can use them 2-3 times a week to listen to the occasional song or a podcast, so who am I to judge?

We all do things that are weird to others. Live and let live.

As for technical merit, the article is correct but IMO that discussion has been beaten to death already.