Lessons from Web 2.0
"Study the past if you would define the future." - Confucius
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"Study the past if you would define the future." - Confucius
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Following Twitter's entrance into the NFT space with the , Twitter tried to incentivize NFT usage by introducing hexagonal borders for NFT profile pictures.
However, the problem, which Twitter employees misunderstood, lies in the fact that any PFP NFT was originally eligible for a hexagonal border as long as it had a blockchain certificate proving it to be a "one of a kind" copy of a token from any collection.
If hexaborders are allowed only with human verification of "credible" collections => a manual bottleneck for the entire social network occurs
If collection parameters (lifespan, popularity, volume, etc.) are used as determining filtering factors, unpopular or new collections cannot be adopted... And I happen to really like this 1 of a dozen NFT art pieces made by Mr. Nobody
If a report system is implemented and the determination of the source of truth is centralized as a result => moderators have to "objectively" decide whether a particular collection is a credible source of unique, non-plagiarized NFTs... => feature access becomes subjective and/or regulated by local irresponsible authority.
If no filtering occurs (no active digital theft prevention takes place) => the owner must report and demand centralized government authority to take down "copycats" and “art thieves.”
Regardless of Twitter's approach, the results will be unfavorable, as this is not a problem that can be solved by an off-chain network. This is once again proven by our favourite chart: volume and sell prices for Bored Apes. The lack of active right-click pursuers correlates with a drop in volume and interest over the "art" itself as the tracker shows us.
These incidents highlight the importance authenticity proofing for the digital assets. It further emphasizes the need for a more reliable project centered system of validating the credibility of token issuers and collections.
Team Fortress 2, for a long time, had "unique" combinations of in-game cosmetics (sometimes even with their own serial numbers), generating unlimited supply cosmetics collection similar but in no way related to NFTs. While the combination of item and its effect could technically produce identical item copies, same thing can happen with randomly generated NFT images and in no way it affects token mechanics. Neither unlimited supply nor centralised nature change the core concept of what TF2 hats represent: a uniquely generated digital asset.
"Some, like Raoul Pal [link needed], believe NFTs will flourish, particularly as the younger generation is acclimated to the digital realm and online image perception. We, on other hand, claim the opposite:
At its current form NFTs are unable to succeed in space of digital cosmetics as 99% of projects don't have a Fortnite-like platform to make use of their virtual "assets"...
To further strengthen "TF2 - good Web 2.0 NFTs example" position, one can make an argument that anyone could create their own team-based FPS with identical cosmetics yet these copies would never reach the same value as the original Team Fortress 2 items because they cannot be used in one of the top five recurrent player games on Steam.
Same argument applies to countless monkey PFP projects which are unable to reach the same volumes as BAYC because they don't create sufficient reason for their new following. In other words, a successful collection does not create a value around itself, instead it is propelled to success by the token usage it enables.
To summarize:
The Twitter example underscores the vulnerability of NFT's uniqueness and blockchain authenticity without an appropriate platform utility.
Reddit's approach demonstrates how utility safeguards NFT legitimacy.
Team Fortress 2 further proves that successful collection requires its own utility platform and cannot create value in an economical vacuum
This led to numerous pixelart.png on the blockchain as new "Non Fungible" Tokens with their own collections and their own hexagon borders. A potential solution would require Twitter, the usage provider, to validate the credibility of the token issuer. This creates several issues for the entire hexaborder feature:
On top of the listed above problems, In some cases, into buying counterfeit NFTs minted in collections from different creators than they initially intended to purchase from.
Compared to Twitter's NFT missteps, the critically acclaimed seemed to get several things right. By creating its own collection for its own platform, Reddit managed to circumvent all token validation problems described above by being both issuer and a usage destination. Reddit could easily verify which avatars are credible and which are right-clicked pirated copycats without any manual moderation or collection limitations. Acting as both the creator and a "user" of its own NFTs, the platform not only self-validates its tokens but also generates intrinsic value of NFT with its internal use-case.
By contrast, Team Fortress 2, a Web 2.0 game with , can teach us valuable lessons about digital ownership and the distinctiveness of items in a specific context.
