NFTs? Why now?
Art NFTs are what brought a lot of non-crypto enthusiast into the ecosystem and although it was great to see such adoption, it was also riddled with controversies. Not everyone was happy about art NFTs, I am still on the fence about it to this day.
What kept me from minting so far
- Concerns regarding environmental impact (for PoW platforms)
- Reinforcing the "fine art market" - as in networked, famous artists got sales while small creators got nothing most of the times (this was proven wrong in some instances, but the big gains were pooled in the top ~20% like most markets)
- Seeing low effort memes soaring in value was disheartening, it basically reinforced the above point - it looked like it was all about notoriety rather than effort
- Lack of intrinsic value - I'd rather make something that the common person can use and enjoy, not a luxury toy that can be bought only by whales
- Theft and lack of authenticity - some platforms allowed exploitation of stolen art works
To compound all of this, I used to have a MakersPlace account and page back in 2019, before everything blew up. Did not get any views, let alone sold anything (the page is no longer there, since I asked the devs to remove it).
Why I am opening to this idea again
It has been a while and maybe it could be different this time. There are far more non PoW platforms that offer NFT marketplaces. There may be a concrete user case for licensing art for commercial use. But more importantly, both here, Reddit and Discord people have been asking me to mint my works. So maybe there is a demand this time.
What kind of NFT would be cool/useful?
- Commercial license - designs, illustrations for printables/card/game (basically the equivalent of an asset that devs and enthusiasts could use)
- Royalty free photography packs - again more tools for other artists and content creators
- Animated paintings - I love making them, but they take a lot of time and unfortunately they are something I cannot do on a regular basis since they normally have no return on time invested (as fun as it is, gotta keep the lights on)
- Instructional material - use NFTs as tickets to access tutorials/mentorships. There are some great mentorships out there on web 2.0, but they end up costing the moon or they don't support the creator enough to keep for the long run
Do you know good non PoW NFT platforms that could work for these kind of projects? I am open to suggestions and looking to get back into the ecosystem, this time with a clear purpose in mind.
Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments here, or come and chat with me on Discord. All ideas and inputs are greatly appreciated!
That was a long wall of text! Rest up traveler! Enjoy some art :D