Humans love to collect things. We have for a long time. In recent history, we’ve had baseball cards, then collectible card games like Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering, and even more recently, skins and cosmetics in video games.
And, in our modern world, with our current technology, we have NFTs. Now, NFTs have many other functions besides being collectibles. Increasingly so, they have robust other uses. But one of their earliest appeals is this idea: to collect and own something for the satisfaction of owning it. It’s the same reason people buy band merch or posters.
But even with there being a massive precedent, some people get weird with digital collectibles. There’s a common discourse you can technically copy-paste an NFT. But that’s also true of photography. Or illustrations. Or entire comic books.
That someone can steal or replicate something doesn’t make it not valuable. It’s like calling the Honus Wagner baseball card just a piece of paper or cardboard. Or that because people can steal gold it’s not worth anything. That’s not how the modern world works.
NFTs extend something that’s been here for longer than living memory: the urge to own something unique. And with our lives increasingly moving into digital spaces, we brought that desire with us.
