Why I Think NFTs Are The Future of the Creator Economy
This is a journey of self-reflection, mindfulness, 1000 true friends, and the camaraderie of people interested in the self-commoditization of creation.
I think that it is about time I shared more about how I got involved in web3 and NFTs. It all began back in 2018 when I started researching blockchain as a potential solution to fake news.
The use of Big Data to influence the outcome of the 2016 US election scared me deeply. I began to see for the first time what could happen if large groups of people were slotted into echo chambers without a means to fact check their lives.
A large part of the problem is that people get their news from clickbaity links on social media. The vast majority of people do not actually click on these links. They share them without reading the full story or checking where they come from.
Even if the link was clicked, the information may have been rerouted thousands of times across the internet and the world, with no way to determine where the information originated.
Enter blockchain. What if we could trace a digital file across the internet, so that we could always determine its source? That would, in theory, allow for people to determine if the source of the content has good or ill intentions.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was researching what became known more commonly as an NFT (non-fungible token).
I didn’t get back into blockchain research until November 2021, when I heard a friend mention that her sister was selling music as NFTs. The concept sounded very familiar: being able to trace a file across the internet sounded much like a way to begin to improve the problem with data I had identified years earlier.
As a photographer, I was also interested in the concept of having a direct connection with my fans; without having to feed the algorithm. Feeding the algorithm is a draining activity that depletes energy and mental health. It’s not possible to feel good interacting with something that is non-human and whose sole purpose is to get people to stare at a screen for as long as possible.
It’s worse than a tamagotchi, though I still try to think of it as one.
With NFTs, I could instead work to intentionally connect with other people who had the same understanding of this concept as I did. A way to share my passion, build community, and make real money, while encouraging good actions.
Thankfully, when I began researching NFTs on twitter in November 2021, I came across @punk6529’s megathread on entering the NFT space. I highly recommend taking the time to read through the entire megathread (link shared at the end). It is a bit like taking a crash course in web3.
it’s also an interesting commentary on the current state of the world.
Down the rabbit hole I went.
True Fans
The concept that intrigued me the most was that of 1000 true fans.
Essentially, if you can build an audience of 1000 true fans that are willing to support you, you can make a living off of your passion. It does not matter what your passion is as long as you can convert it into a digital file. You must then figure out a way to show people your passion and tell them the story behind it. In other words, make people care about your story and where the future may bring it.
NFTs sounded like a great way to do this. Instead of trying to amass a large following on traditional social media, I could work to build a fan base of people that truly love my work and a community of people who share my love of the natural world and are willing to continue to help build it.
For me, this concept tied together three things that I was most passionate about: mindfulness, photography, and making the world a better place. The more I thought about NFTs, the more I realized that these three concepts could go very well together.
I am passionate about photography for its ability to bring me directly into the present moment. Taking a photo requires me to 1) be present in that physical location and 2) find something that I can sense a direct connection to, something that allows me to capture the emotion of the moment and convey it in a story so that others can experience the moment with me.
Photography is the digital medium through which I can expose my values associated with improving the world and provide a visual to tell my story. It also allows me to share the beauty of our world, something I think the world needs more of.
So, how does this work? How can I monetize my passion in this way, building a base of true fans, while sharing a positive emotion throughout the internet?
Well, first I needed to research. A lot. It took about 50 hours of researching blockchain, wallets, marketplaces, marketing strategies, etc. before I felt I had grasped the complexity. Most people think that NFTs are something that people just slap together without much thought, a scam to get people to buy a useless digital file.
They’re not wrong. Scams do exist. However, in my experience, most web3 scams are related to projects that have no history to back up the artist behind the project. Also, most scams are related to profile pictures (PFPs) and FOMO. These projects often have 10,000 randomly generated images that are sold like stocks to invest in a start-up company.
That said, most scams across the board come from web2. Clicking on links and phishing scams are the most common, but these are not web3 specific. To avoid these scams, a basic understanding of cybersecurity practices is helpful. DON’T CLICK ON UNKNOWN LINKS
I was more interested in NFTs for the 1/1 art, like fine art photography, or editions of this type of art (e.g., 10 of the same photo sold at a cheaper price). Effectively, a digital version of selling unique or limited edition prints without the logistics of printing and shipping.
I was most excited about NFTs because, like I mentioned above, I didn’t have to feed an algorithm. Instead, I could build a network of people having the shared goal of funding art and creation by people who cared to collect such things. Working with a team feels a lot better than trying to battle an algorithm, trust me.
The cool part is that while you are working on a team to help each other out, you find other people who share your passion. This inevitably leads to discussion on the passion and allows people to share and transfer knowledge to help each other out, improving the average quality of content put on the internet as they learn from each other.
Resolution, colour grading, noise reduction, equipment, technology, marketing, etc. There are a lot of skills that go into making a digital file look like fine art, having a quality that a collector or investor would find valuable to purchase, emotionally, financially, or both.
Value
Value is always going to be relative. Value is a concept that I have faced the most resistance with when explaining NFTs to people. The two main questions are: (1) “Why would anyone pay $1000 for a photo?” and (2) “why are NFTs so much money, I can just screenshot it?”.
(1) because someone had the money available and wanted to purchase it, either to collect the work because it made them feel something or to invest in the artist because they foresee the value increasing (just like a growth stock).
(2) you can’t screenshot an NFT. An NFT is a token minted from a smart contract, a certificate of authenticity associated with a digital file. Just because the digital file can be screenshotted does not mean that the certificate of authenticity can be copied. It can’t.
So, we are left with a token that can be valued and traded by others as a way to fund the value that is provided to the internet and everyone as a whole. This sounds a bit better than mining attention in my opinion.
Next Step: The Story
If you’re interested in reading more about the tech behind NFTs and Web3, I put together an intro and FAQ.
If you’re interested in reading more about the Creator Economy, here is the next part of the journey: How I Made My First NFT Collection
