Who you working for?
I've been asked a lot recently both online and in real life why the hell did I get interested in NFTs, especially as it's all a big Ponzi scheme and crypto is dead yadda yadda yadda. So I've decided to write this short post on the reason why I became interested in them.
Before getting stuck in, how you feel about NFTs doesn't matter to the point I'm making, so you can park those feelings and rest assured that I'm not going to bang on about them. What should interest you and, I hope, what you'll agree with is the reason why change is needed.
Now, as I've said before, pixels are an undervalued resource. If you take an amazing photo, print and frame it, it's worth something. But if you put that photo on the screen it's apparently not worth anything, despite being the same photo.
A lot of art has had this problem, including books. I was recently shocked to discover a close friend downloads free (stolen) versions of new books for their e-reader. Ok, I get you don't want to pay Amazon, but surely it's better to buy the hard copy instead? I can't imagine they'd ever dream of stealing a real version off a bookshelf, yet in digital form it's there for the taking. The lack of perceived value in anything digital stops us from giving due value to the art the pixels hold.
So that's the first part. The second is the even more annoying part.
For the last two decades the work we've all been creating has become the currency of big companies to make insane profits. Our work has been shovelled under the umbrella term 'content' and has been handed over to the likes of Facebook for free to allow them to exist and grow. You work, they make money. They get obscenely rich, they take over the global narrative, they make us all anxious and depressed, and we pay them. Doesn't seem like the best deal...
Right now there are organisations with tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of employees who are dedicated to creating 'content' for the big platforms. I'll repeat this because it's important: organisations are literally spending their own money to pay salaries for people to create content for other companies to use and make money. It's bonkers when you start to think about it.
That can and should change. Simple as that. And that's my post.