The metaverse’s first act reintroduced artificial scarcity to abundant digital goods

Evidence

Yet before this virtual utopia could even take shape, the tech industry’s first move was to reintroduce scarcity into the system. NFTs became the digital frontier’s version of private property, assigning ownership to otherwise infinitely replicable digital goods. With NFTs, anyone could download the same JPEG, but only one person could “own” it. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 723

Categorization

• SHARE: Send to a friend who reads tech/cultural criticism — the irreverence of a would-be utopia of radical abundance immediately installing private property is a perfect point.
• XREF: Ties to the omnivore monoculture thesis: the sellout of the openness ethos echoes complaints of co-option Marx tracks. — connects to: Algorithm-driven finance prepared the ground for enclosing the early commons-like internet — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 296