NFTs sucked. The golden age was the discussion of the free use of art, right clicking, downloading, and screenshotting. It seemed for once, people promoting the free sharing and reposting of art was common. It was great, to see opposition to tech power was an opening of the door and freeing of the arts, it felt anarchic and amazing.

.

The golden age of NFT discussion never existed. A lot of digital artists needed to be convinced kicking and screaming that NFTs were environmentally destructive casino chips, and not a "good idea in theory". You never meet an artist who thought NFTs were a "good idea implemented poorly" any more. They used to be everywhere.

The golden age of NFT discussion never existed. People who would enthusiastically promote "stealing" NFTs would leverage the DMCA against NFT bros who pulled the uno reverse, showing an embarrassing lack of principles. The outrage of being right-clicked became concern trolling at a certain stage, a lot of ugly apes released under permissive licensing so free it would make any idea landlord flush with embarrassment.

The golden age of NFT discourse ended with the rise of AI. Now, more than ever, its a faux pas to screenshot and repost an image that goes hard. The NFTs are gone, but the ideas of digital ownership are stronger than ever. And its awful.

The golden age of NFT discourse ended with the rise of AI. Now, the artists who sincerely believed NFTs were a good idea in theory are more empowered than ever to sook about their pictures being copied. Any discussion of freeing the arts has completely regressed and gotten way worse. Right clicking and reposting doesn't only represent a nebulous and ill-defined idea of "attention theft", but its like feeding an image directly into Grok's hungry little mouth. The act of reposting now cast an evil act destroying the arts themselves. Its so depressing. I'm depressed.