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Comment by pru567 | Hacker News Reader

NFTs are art-projects, status-symbols, patreons, access keys (conferences/private discords), and an experiment in IP law (as owning a Bored Ape confers merchandising rights.) The space is more interesting than just jpegs.

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So using the access key as an example:

If I buy an NFT that grants me access to a very exclusive conference, how can I be sure that security will actually let me into this conference? Or how can I be sure at the time of purchase that the conference will actually happen?

No one can be absolutely certain of a future event, but you are being unreasonably negative.

Ok what’s the advantage of an NFT over a regular ticket then?

You would need to have a preexisting trust relationship with the issuer of the NFT. If it was originally minted with a keypair known to belong to the conference organizer or a trusted third party TicketMaster, then it'll probably be honored at the venue. If not, caveat emptor.

So how does this have any advantage over a regular ticket? (Other than “collectibles”)

As a buyer, you could validate the authenticity of a ticket from a reseller, so getting a counterfeit from a scalper wouldn't be a worry. I think that's it, though

NFTs are a receipt. There are some areas where having a receipt/proof of purchase in hand is useful (ticketing/licensing), but that utility is separate from the thing you are proving to have purchased.

NFTs can be interesting if you're interested in novel licensing schemes or safe secondary markets for concert tickets, but it's definitely niche. The "interest in NFTs" beyond that is just everyone's natural inclination to try to make a buck before the music stops.

I think NFTs will become used culturally to fight the perennial "Eternal September" -- or the phenomenon whereby a place gets ruined because its too popular; They will be used to signal identification with some group and then network with them. Societies/tribes/subcultures are about including/excluding who they do and don't want.

Why not just ban the accounts of people you want to exclude and not open account registration to the public? The system you're proposing presupposes accounts, login, and some form of external trust anchor; I guess you can use the NFT issuer as the trust anchor, but that just pushes the problem of deciding who gets in from account registration to NFT issuance. Users would be able to delete/recreate their accounts without re-proving their in-group status, but that's the only advantage I'm seeing for using NFTs in this system.

"The space is more interesting than just jpegs."

So is gravel.

trolling is such fun, such wow.

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