NFT's And Monetizing The Internet

NFT's are an attempt... to monetize EVERYTHING online, including but not limited to; picture's, movie's and social media posts but I don't agree with this concept for a variety of reasons. In fact, I would personally prefer that photograph’s and music were free online and entirely public property or, "global common-wealth."

And let me pose a question to you, "what if somebody monetized water?" Should EVERY SINGLE COMMODITY ON EARTH be monetized? What about sex? What about air? And where do we draw the line between, “global common-wealth commodities,” and, "Capitalist private property?"

Let me take this a step further… what if Microsoft charged 10 cents to turn on the WINDOWS operating system? Or what if simply pressing, “save,” on a Microsoft Word document costed 5 cents? This would seem like unethical business and surely it is, the magnetism required to save a common Microsoft Word document is less than 2 millimeters in diameter and less than 1/billionth of a common CD-R’s memory space, which uses mostly aluminum foil to magnetize 0’s and 1’s on a common compact disc. While the device itself is VASTLY complicated… the resources are somewhat common on our Earth today and quite frankly this very debate, at the hardware level, is comical at best, particularly as computer hardware becomes more and more affordable.

Now, with that being said… in terms of SOFTWARE… there is an argument to be made. Software developers often spend thousands and thousands of hours creating some of these programs, including Word Processing applications like Microsoft Word and surely they deserve just compensation. However, what is “just compensation?” And more or less, this issue, often spills over into the issue of piracy and increased monetization. DEVELOPER X builds SOFTWARE Y and is paid handsomely, only to think to themselves later on, “I should’ve made more money from that,” and then to increase the user’s fee’s. In fact, this happens regularly throughout our economy in almost every sector where innovation takes place, particularly due to inflation.

In fact, most patents only last 30 years at the US Patent Office, you aren’t legally even allowed to patent something for more than 30 years… but most of the American public doesn’t even know that because company’s like Ford and Coca Cola have grown exceedingly rich from age old, “inventions.”

Nevertheless, and before I stray too far into macro economics, let me re-state that I dislike the idea of monetizing photograph’s and music online, today. And many people disagree. In fact, the entire pornography industry is up in arms today, over piracy and monetizing social media content, turning a fledgling industry into a predominantly free commodity online today.

And the pornography industry is one way to explain this. Should porno cost money and what do you pay a pornstar? And is that ethical?

And I don’t think that I should even have to go into the issues surrounding sex trafficking, child sex, interviewing pornstars and how long they should perform… but the general argument in Los Angeles, California (where 99% of Pornographic content online is made) is that the sex industry is a legitimate economic commodity, which I further disagree with, for all of the above reasons.

But beyond just “porno” what about REAL MOVIES, REAL ART and MUSIC? Should NFT’s be implemented internet wide to monetize such things? And while many in America believe that this concept rewards hard working people, similarly to software developers, I have a unique perspective in that I both make music and develop software… and let me say that, while I think many software developers are overpaid and many musicians are NOT PAID AT ALL, I still find NFT’s and online commoditys to be a bit too much, in terms of monetizing CULTURE.

And that’s the bedrock of my argument today. Where do we draw the line between monetizing commodities… and monetizing culture? Where to me, as a child who grew up on cartoons, scrolling through TV channels and consuming limitless music on the radio… those shows and songs, in many ways became engrained into my life both as a child and as an adult. In fact, much of this content molds children and adults into their; occupations, social preferences and even religious affiliations later in life.

Which to me is very, “valuable,” but not in a sense of, “money.”

Or rather… by monetizing all pictures and video’s online I view the economy as becoming overbearing… in terms of shaping our social preferences, cultural choices and cultural affiliations. Should poor kids be culture-less? Should poor children be forced to miss their favorite cartoons online, which is now the premier medium for consuming music and television, vs their more well off counterparts? And especially in terms of children’s content. Where by monetizing children’s content online… and not to say this hasn’t been a problem in the past as well, concerning the music industry specifically, but by monetizing children’s content… we are essentially monetizing their idea’s, development, social cue’s, preferences and ultimately their identity… from the onset of childhood development.

Or rather, it simply makes the world too much about money! Should children be raised entirely by their parents bank accounts? Should the bank teller just come to our house and teach our kids everyday instead? And to what level should money shape our children’s lives? Furthermore, in a world where children CANNOT afford cartoons or music… all they would have is religion, which has political and military ramifications as well.

Or rather, I believe that it’s in our children’s best interest to keep OUR CULTURE something of a, “common-wealth commodity,” and create some sort of level playing field, from the onset of childhood development.

Maybe all content doesn’t have to be free… but most should be. Cartoons, music, TV shows, specifically. And furthermore, by keeping these things free it allows people to TRY all sorts of new shows and songs, that they might not otherwise listen to or watch which actually HELPS the music and film industry, almost as much as it hurts it.

Regardless; and if you’ve been to LA lately, piracy isn’t nearly as big of a problem in music and film vs how big of a problem it is that a lot of greedy old people refuse to leave the industry. IE Robert Downey Jr’s 25th installment of a box office flop, coming out next Spring.

Regardless, NFT’s provide a way to OVER MONETIZE this content but at what cost? At the cost of poor children having a cultural identity? At the cost of increased religious sentiment? Or at the cost of a potential world conflict?

Whereby, I kind of prefer Youtube how it is today. And I spend countless hours working on original content, myself, btw.

Furthermore… and this will be my final point… but NFT’s also make coding and encryption somewhat more complicated. NFT’s require long chains of encryption which both slow the internet down and require massively more computer storage space… which isn’t even a win for developers. Furthermore, hardware upgrades like QUANTUM COMPUTER make NFT’s and encryption almost worthless as these newer computers can crack the encryption in literally seconds… making these commodities once again, basically free.

-William Larsen, Founder, Civilians News