Quit addition to that explanation that I thought of as a nice example for you:
Let's say Stephen King writes a new novel. What is that manuscript worth that he just cranked out on his old typewriter? It's got value -- a lot more value than any sort of book which is ever published as a copy of that manuscript...
But now, let's say he decided to write his new novel using Google Docs. It's all digital. Does that mean that his original transcript is now worthless because he didn't print it out on paper, and folks are downloading exact copies in ebook/pdf format? Why was the paper version valuable, but the digital version worthless? Couldn't he just go to a copy machine and make copies of that original transcript and give them out? Even if he did, *would it change the value of the original*?? Original manuscript for a Stephen King novel vs. mass-copied manuscript which is one of thousands... Which do you think is going to sell for more at auction??
And that's basically all NFTs are, in a nutshell. They're proclamations that "This is the original, so it has value!" or "This is #3 of 10 limited-edition, official, versions." Which is why taking a screenshot or copying someone else's work/image/asset just isn't the same. Though they're easy to counterfeit (which is why the site has a warning against them), they're worthless unless they're the original NFT itself.
Let's say Stephen King writes a new novel. What is that manuscript worth that he just cranked out on his old typewriter? It's got value -- a lot more value than any sort of book which is ever published as a copy of that manuscript...
But now, let's say he decided to write his new novel using Google Docs. It's all digital. Does that mean that his original transcript is now worthless because he didn't print it out on paper, and folks are downloading exact copies in ebook/pdf format? Why was the paper version valuable, but the digital version worthless? Couldn't he just go to a copy machine and make copies of that original transcript and give them out? Even if he did, *would it change the value of the original*?? Original manuscript for a Stephen King novel vs. mass-copied manuscript which is one of thousands... Which do you think is going to sell for more at auction??
And that's basically all NFTs are, in a nutshell. They're proclamations that "This is the original, so it has value!" or "This is #3 of 10 limited-edition, official, versions." Which is why taking a screenshot or copying someone else's work/image/asset just isn't the same. Though they're easy to counterfeit (which is why the site has a warning against them), they're worthless unless they're the original NFT itself.