okay, so i've seen a lot of people asking what NFTs are and why they're bad. and i've seen a lot of other people link that tumblr post that only describes them in a very handwave-y way, so to set the record straight: this is what NFTs are, and why they're harmful. (thread)

in short, an NFT (non-fungible token) is a way for an artist to "sell" digital art. each piece of media gets a unique ID (determined by the media) that can then be sold off; the new owner of that ID gets their name put on a big list (called a blockchain) that states they own it.

when you buy an NFT, you're not buying the art itself, or its distribution rights, or anything else - you're just buying that one single ID, on that one single blockchain. if the artist (or someone else) put the ID on another blockchain, someone else could own it, too.

there's no security measures that prevent someone who isn't the artist from putting the media on the blockchain either, which is a big problem that's already happened - other people profiting off of an artist's work without their permission (sometimes even a dead artist's work)

that alone would be bad enough, but even ignoring it there's still more issues. small artists usually don't get paid nearly enough for selling their work as an NFT. it costs on average about $70-$100 USD to mint an artwork, and most NFTs sell for much less than that.

so NFTs aren't good for small artists, as they're too expensive; and they aren't good for larger artists either, whose work could be stolen without permission. but even ignoring THAT, there's one last problem, much bigger than the rest: ecological cost.

remember the "blockchain" idea from before? the way blockchains work is by having a big list of all of the transactions that occurred; and adding any new entries requires a ton of processing power as the machine minting the new block must complete a "proof-of-work" challenge.

therein lies the problem with NFTs - most all of them use this proof of work system which requires an enormous amount of power to do a very simple task, adding an entry to a list.

that power must come from somewhere, and that somewhere is most likely going to be an environmentally harmful source. many, many concerns have been raised about the current state of climate change, and this is just another rock on the pile that we don't need

so that's the problem with NFTs. they
- use a lot of energy
- to do a simple task, and
- could be made by anyone, not just the artist, and
- even if done by the artist they still aren't profitable

i hope this helped clear up any confusion on the topic; i'll be adding to this thread if anyone has any questions. in the meantime, please share this thread! raising awareness about these problems is the key to putting an end to them