The closest way I’ve found to explain the weirdness of #NFT for art: They’re like a signed, numbered limited edition print, but the signature is not on the actual print, and not necessarily even by the artist

Except not limited, nor endorsed, nor valid in any sense other than by everyone pretending.

Somebody compared it to star naming services.

I know. I’m not convinced, as that is 100% a scam, and there are some actual artists involved in that NFT thing, which makes it only 95% comparable IMO :)

An artist being complicit in a Ponzi scheme doesn't mean it isn't a Ponzi scheme. It just means the artist is happy to fleece a greater fool. Don't confuse creativity with integrity! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greate…

I find the Ponzi scheme scam arguments too shallow, and also quite boring TBH

I don't understand the argument about shallow, and I can't help things that you find boring (I'm not too excited about it myself). It is an artificial construct where the last person standing finds they are holding something worthless, and everyone else along the way cashes out.

It is the literal definition of a Ponzi scheme. There is zero worth in a digital pointer to something, especially when (which is already happening) the platforms doing the pointing suddenly stop existing.

There’s a ton of fraudulent stuff happening in that space, but there are actual, legitimate use cases, e.g. when the actual owner connects an actual right to it, when some other service validates ownership, etc. And I’m not aware of other decentralized ways to achieve that.

There is nothing "decentralised" about it in a governance sense. If you put a NFT on the Ethereum blockchain, it is part of the Ethereum network. It has no legitimacy outside of that network. A genuinely decentralised way to do it would be peer-to-peer nonrepudiation like PGP.