There is undoubtedly a huge number of rugpulls, vaporware, empty promises, and outright scams with NFTs. But this is true of any nascent technology, any sort of project like this. The reason so many people know about it and are aware about it is because of the permissionless and open nature of crypto which allows people to see these projects in realtime.
IMO it's neither good nor bad. It's just nascent tech. For an artist like Sabet, it's obviously good! It gets people exposed to his art, with a low entry barrier, and allows people to support him. For people like Trump, it's pretty clearly bad, and it just allows him to scam/rugpull people easier and faster.
So if somebody buys my digital photos off Deviant art, they didn't "purchase my photos"? Geez, I better go call that TV studio that used some of my work and let them know they got scammed.
When I hired a wedding photographer 15 years ago and got the digitals, did I get scammed?
Are you against people buying anything digital or just the underlying technological platform?
I quite enjoyed supporting artists like Ame72 and Sabat by purchasing their digital artwork. 🤷♀️
I don't see how it's much different than Patreon. You pay creators that you enjoy, you get a digital collectable, and access to discord of you care about that sort of thing. NFTs allowed many people to do art full-time.
I think you already read the reason/s but in a monopoly capitalist society, but companies can just smother smaller ones by leveraging their exploited workforce (more output for less cost), out-competing, buying up all competition, much better economies of scale, and access to capital and market forces.
Just take an example of a small business owner who sells sporting goods (I use this example because I love Freak and Geeks lol). How can you possibly compete with Walmart when Walmart has bigger and better inventory, cheaper prices, more locations, basically no competitors, better advertising, etc? Sure lots of people value 'small businesses' from a moral/ethical point of view, but enough for this company to grow and grow and grow and compete with friggin Walmart? That just doesn't happen often.
Now, something like REI, which is a coop, does compete with Walmart in a very niche market. REI has a strong brand and loyal customer base, allowing it to compete effectively in the outdoor and sporting goods sector. However, its focus is more on quality and specialized products rather than mass-market items. Do you think Walmart couldn't just destroy REI if it felt like it was being threatened and it wasn't one of the largest mcap companies on the planet?
Do find it interesting that every anti-capitalist society was achieved through revolution? Not by voting or incremental changes, but by ugly, violent, revolution?
By all means go and create some coops! I became a member of a local food coop. But I am under no delusion that this impacts capitalism whatsoever.
Capitalists aren't going to just let the system slowly change. The mass murder campaigns waged by the CIA have taught us that (read The Jakarta Method).
I will continue to fight, annoy, and agitate the capitalist status quo. Majority of Americans do not agree with current politics, our current "leader", or oligarchs controlling everything.
I use Proton currently since it comes with my proton subscription. But I used mullvad for years and prefer it. They're both good, you can't go wrong really.
I'm a fellow communist who has been lifting for 15 years. I've literally never experienced this IRL. People say that gym bros are like this online, but I've never seen it. I've seen nothing but hella nice dudes. I'm not saying the toxic right wing selfhelp joe rogan gym bro isn't out there, I just think that stereotype is way overblown.
we're using the movement to try to recruit for DSA. These big mainstream movements are always a psyop, but there's opportunity to spread the word and get people asking the hard questions.
I’ve read some of Lenin, but I haven’t gotten far into What Is To Be Done. This podcast by RevLeft Radio does a nice overview of the text. It seems very applicable right now.
The gist is that without a Vanguard party, these spontaneous movements (Hands Off, 50501) will eventually and inevitably sputter out and die, or be co-opted by the bourgeoisie. This has happened many times throughout history (Occupy, etc). Furthermore, without an organized Vanguard party to lead these movements, the movement will just default to capitalist status quo.
There is undoubtedly a huge number of rugpulls, vaporware, empty promises, and outright scams with NFTs. But this is true of any nascent technology, any sort of project like this. The reason so many people know about it and are aware about it is because of the permissionless and open nature of crypto which allows people to see these projects in realtime.
IMO it's neither good nor bad. It's just nascent tech. For an artist like Sabet, it's obviously good! It gets people exposed to his art, with a low entry barrier, and allows people to support him. For people like Trump, it's pretty clearly bad, and it just allows him to scam/rugpull people easier and faster.