What does it seem nuts now that we used to do?

NFTs are trying to solve the problem of digital ownership of creative works. How do you retain uniqueness and enforce property rights when the technology allows for functionally infinite perfect reproductions? The answer is you don't. Or, you do, but with incredible difficulty. What has more-or-less worked so far is a combination of rewarding people for obtaining digital items legitimately (like on Steam), and punishing those who obtain (and especially distribute) illegitimate versions. It also helps to make something that people are both willing and able to pay for. The promise of the NFT is that it's a digital log of ownership, backed up and verified by a large number of anonymous people. The problem is that the ownership of an NFT really just means a link to a file held on a server somewhere, and everyone with more than two brain cells to rub together knows that the only guaranteed way to *own* anything is to physically have it in your possession. Holding a certified legal document declaring you the owner is a close second, assuming your country's legal system is capable of backing you up. BUT, while downloading the image onto your personal machine is a more secure form of ownership than hoping that a server stays up, that also makes it indistinguishable from someone who just right clicked save image, so it has no trade value. The fundamental flaw of NFTs (aside from their enormous potential for scams) is that it uses a model of ownership similar to holding something in trust. That is, you get a slip of paper (or a ledger in the blockchain) stating that you own a thing, but someone else actually keeps hold of it. This works well enough for physical property and financial assets, but because digital property can be infinitely and perfectly reproduced at almost no cost, anyone can acquire an identical copy of it, and because it's just data and not a physical object, it's very easy for the "real" version to be lost. A slightly better system might be one where the data itself is actually transferred in a sale, rather than simply the receipt, but I don't think it really solves enough of the issues. Without the power of a state to back you up, digital property rights basically don't exist. At least you can physically defend your physical property. What's someone going to do about me right clicking save image on their stupid jpg of a monkey? Send a sternly written email? Get on a plane across the Atlantic to demand I delete a file from my hard drive? It's asinine. It's SovCit thinking for the digital age.