While am not an NFT hater, I thing the technology is wonderful news, but it is being used foolishly right now.
Seldom do I make a claim about the real world that I am certain is backed up with solid reasoning, but today is one of those days that my gut instinct about the current vortex of culture is easily verifiable with something akin to logic. A repulsive NFT profile picture from the "Lazy Lions" collection trades upwards of 8k USD while I am writing this. Meanwhile money like that could buy you an etching from Rembrandt himself, perhaps even two or three if you are lucky at the auction. Here is my selection of just some of Rembrandt's works that you can buy today and use as a profile picture:
The last one, an especially splendid self-portrait would make an excellent profile picture, but I have selected it simply to demonstrate the chasm between most NFTs and traditional art in technique. I will not summon any of the modern crap that I am deriding, since such a juxtaposition would mar our appreciation of Rembrandt, suffice it to say that what passes as digital art is infinitely worse than the traditional art you could buy for a similar price, since it is both objectively ugly and a step backwards in terms of technology.
Allow me to explain: an NFT is meant to transpose much of the natural properties that physical items have into the information space, representing intangible things on a blockchain to enable proof of ownership of the original. This is all nice and dandy, but one would benefit from retaining in mind that the wood on which Mona Lisa is painted is merely wood on which Mona Lisa is painted, nothing more and nothing less, which has more implications that evident at first glance: the artwork, while enabled by the wood, is perceived by the eye. If you achieve the experience of the Mona Lisa and are able to view it at all angles, anywhere in the house and at any given waking moment, that would be as close to the experience of ownership as possible, sans the feeling of possession which ardent NFT cultists seem to chase.
Now let us assume you buy an etching by Rembrandt or Durer, scan it and use it as your profile picture. Someone else might take that ver image and use it as their profile picture. Assuming you get into a twatter spat with them over that or feel obliged to inform the world that you chose your avatar from among your possessions and that anyone who copies you would merely be promoting the original artwork you possess, you could merely show everyone a picture of the Rembrandt with a timestamp. You might say that this is less convenient than NFTs, well, owning a physical piece of art allows for an infinite set of experiences of a sculpture or picture, with different light and angles, while most NFTs are simply 2d images or animations that anyone can save to their computer with nothing stopping them from achieving the same aesthetic input as their digital owners. Finally, etchings and sculptures work exactly like NFTs, coming in limited series of authorised copies, with bootleg copies, as per international convention not being considered official works and having little to no value, if not outright forbidden from being traded. This also means that your experience of possession of an given artwork will be much more justified, since you will be in control not only of the nominal right to be the owner of a phenomenon, but also the matter that enables that phenomenon.
NFTs are a great way to sell things that were hard to sell in the past, like pieces of music or other sought after but intangible pieces of information, but when it comes to the visual arts I think it is clear that traditional art still holds the upper hand in terms of the quality that it can provide, without lagging behind technologically either. Finally, an NFT could simply be attached to an artwork to act as yet another certificate and proof of provenance, which would be a much more valid use of NFT technology than the creation of synthetic scarcity for its own sake.