I will attempt to add my understanding to the information you have provided. I maybe right, or I maybe wrong but here goes...
"What makes any art valuable other than people's shared belief that it has value?"
Well there are often other factors to consider such as artistic and technical merit, provenance, time/effort/cost in the creation of the artwork, its ability to captivate or draw attention, it's message and subsequent ability to elicit a powerful emotional response in an audience and its ability to add value and future earning potential to an individual or business due to the aforementioned qualities.
The current NFT craze seems to be primarily driven due to the hype of new technology, a popularity contest amongst artists using this technology (which appears to be mainly driven an echo chamber of social media and carefully curated online articles promoting a select amount of chosen artists) and speculation as you have mentioned later on in your post.
"There's a very interesting space where art and technology are coalescing."
How about all throughout the mid to late 80s when high-bit color graphic user interfaces became common place causing a resurgence of video and computer games after the infamous video games crash? There were many artists that began using art and technology to the fullest extent possible at that time. This happened after Atari and their abysmal gaming systems and poor quality cash grab games were, after an initial hype (much like NFTs at the moment) died down after consumers realized these early games were trash and provided no value to the consumer.
Eventually Japanese artists working for Nintendo persevered and other quality companies eventually inspired home brew game programmers, many of which eventually became so popular they formed companies of their own that went on to produce some of the influential hits of the 90s.
How about Photoshop 1.0 which was first released in 1987? Its use began a renaissance of computer usage in graphic design which led into the 90s. Also Silicon graphics computers used extensively in the late 80s once again leading into the 90s.
The artwork created within these industries was absolutely cutting edge, expensive due to high costs of hardware and time to render etc with an extremely steep learning curve yet provided immense value. These artists were pioneers and didn't initially do it just for the money. These artists were driven by virtue. The were pioneers that eventually conquered these industries and profited immensely for their valuable contributions.
"People are using computers to create incredible digital art, but there's limited means to display, sell, or monitize it."
There is infinite possibilities in displaying and monetizing digital art both in the 3d and 2d sense such as merchandising (prints, t-shirts etc) games, film, tictok, steam, youtube (which utilizes rights management technology) and ever emerging platforms which will likely rely on highly thought out blockchain systems etc. Selling and monetizing artwork is only possible if it is inherently valuable based upon the factors explained earlier.
"Fuck the pixel apes or punks...check out some people like Zach Lieberman, Joshua Davis, Casey Reas, and Mark Dorf. These are people who are using programming, coding, augmented reality, and algorithmic functions to make beautiful dynamic and generative art."
Yes, them and many, many more just like them. This is due to the mainstream adoption, normalization and affordability of the technology which used to create this art. If they are truly pioneers then their works should stand on its own merits and be revolutionary, in turn leading them into the brand/commercial realm of art which is were the real money is at. I'm sure if they were great (and I'll be honest I haven't heard of a single one of them) they would be household names.
Economics 101, the more saturated the market is, the cheaper an item becomes. This is evident in photography. Prior to the advent of mainstream digital photography, very few could actually call themselves professionals, now anyone with an Iphone calls themselves a photographer. This forces potential clients and customers to dig through coal to find a diamond. Many can still make a huge name for themselves based upon factors explained earlier however it becomes much harder to do so due to the sheer amount of terrible "photographers" saturating the market.
"Value is completely subjective. The speculator people who are doing all these million dollar bored ape and pixelated unicorn things are actually helping digital artists by creating a precedent of value for their work and this medium."
Wrong. It is harming what art originally stood for. Art should be beautiful, captivating, have technical and artistic merit and elicit a powerful emotional response from the viewer. Post modernism is not art. Classical beauty is now considering frivolous and shunned. Our world has become ugly and the post modern art is a reflection of our ugly society. Ugly art selling for millions doesn't mean all ugly art will sell for millions.
"These digital artists previously had no way to monitize their digital creations, even though they're all hugely respected and revered in their fields. Now they do."
I'm sorry but this is wrong. NFTs are not the only possible way digital artists can make money. It is simply another way they can potentially make money.
"The possibilities of what uses could evolve for NFT are limitless, and the whole scene is being created as we speak."
Yes this is indeed true. The technology has the potential for great things but at the moment its nothing more than a poorly thought out cash grab.
"NFT's could help artists license out their work to businesses that would like to use it, instead of having it stolen and not really having any recourse to prevent theft."
Eventually but not at the moment. The closest thing that came to this in the form of an integrated rights management crypto platform was kodakcoin and that never even had a chance to get off the ground due to being abandoned. At the moment, NFTs are only linked to the artwork related to it (commonly only in the form of a link, which means its hosting can eventually be shutdown or moved etc and is dependent on the person hosting said link).
A quick break down of proof of ownership in NFTs only means to "establish a verified and public proof of ownership. Copies of the original file are not restricted to the owner of the NFT, and can be copied and shared like any file."
"The function of defined ownership creates scarcity, and that in turn makes the digital art world more like a microcosm of how the IRL fine art world works, except with normal people dictating the value of something as opposed to snobby high art gatekeepers."
You are misinformed on the proof of ownership understanding of NFTs. An artist can make endless derivatives of their self produced digital art (quickly and easily) and sell, a single, multiple or series of NFTs of these derivatives while still retaining the original copyright to their work. All that the purchaser of the NFT will receive is a proof of ownership of only that NFT and generally nothing more (except perhaps a product or whatever maybe sold along with that NFT which ties into the commecial potential of NFT technology such as the Skyline NFT Nissan sold which included an actual Skyline as part of the purchase).
The artwork can still effectively be copied, pirated etc (if disregarding rights such as copyright etc, which is near impossible to enforce online anyways).
Digital files due to their very nature can be copied so your analogy to fine art doesn't make sense. Even when technological copy protections are in place, these can be circumvented easily. The only way an artist can be completely covered from a rights management standpoint is an NFT block chain system integrating rights management but this will have to be brought in by a corporate powerhouse such as Google or Facebook, further entrenching this tech into a centralized system for enforcement which appears to be defeating the whole "decentralized" ideology of this technology to begin with.
"Also: owning some original NFT from an artist on your computer may not seem like it's a big deal now, but as we migrate further into digital worlds (VR...metaverse, etc), these works and their ability to be displayed and viewed in digital spaces will make the concept of ownership make more sense."
"We"? I have absolutely no intention on supporting Metaverse, vr tech, augmented tech or plugging the back of my head into the matrix because that movie told me what can happen if I do... That's not to say there wont be people that will happily rush into this tech in order to get an endless rush of dopamine, to satisfy their egotistical urges and to speculate.
"People already pay a good chunk of change for skins or accessories in video games. That is the direction we're heading, so while the NFT may seem like it lacks utility now, it may have all the utility in the world as technology and the way we interact continues to evolve"
"People"? By people you mean consoomers. "The way we interact continues to evolve"? No this is just the way corporations continue to push new ways we should be interacting. Nothing about this is natural evolution. This is completely artificially planned and strategically pushed. In the early days of subculture, brands and corporations always attempted to co opt these subcultures for commercial gain. Eventually corporations cracked the formula and popular culture became subverted. This has only amplified in recent years due to corporate strangle hold on nearly every aspect of daily life. Corporations have already jumped into NFTs so please don't try and tell me that any of this is an organic evolution of culture, interaction or what ever.
I will attempt to add my understanding to the information you have provided. I maybe right, or I maybe wrong but here goes...
"What makes any art valuable other than people's shared belief that it has value?"
Well there are often other factors to consider such as artistic and technical merit, provenance, time/effort/cost in the creation of the artwork, its ability to captivate or draw attention, it's message and subsequent ability to elicit a powerful emotional response in an audience and its ability to add value and future earning potential to an individual or business due to the aforementioned qualities.
The current NFT craze seems to be primarily driven due to the hype of new technology, a popularity contest amongst artists using this technology (which appears to be mainly driven an echo chamber of social media and carefully curated online articles promoting a select amount of chosen artists) and speculation as you have mentioned later on in your post.
"There's a very interesting space where art and technology are coalescing."
How about all throughout the mid to late 80s when high-bit color graphic user interfaces became common place causing a resurgence of video and computer games after the infamous video games crash? There were many artists that began using art and technology to the fullest extent possible at that time. This happened after Atari and their abysmal gaming systems and poor quality cash grab games were, after an initial hype (much like NFTs at the moment) died down after consumers realized these early games were trash and provided no value to the consumer.
Eventually Japanese artists working for Nintendo persevered and other quality companies eventually inspired home brew game programmers, many of which eventually became so popular they formed companies of their own that went on to produce some of the influential hits of the 90s.
How about Photoshop 1.0 which was first released in 1987? Its use began a renaissance of computer usage in graphic design which led into the 90s. Also Silicon graphics computers used extensively in the late 80s once again leading into the 90s.
The artwork created within these industries was absolutely cutting edge, expensive due to high costs of hardware and time to render etc with an extremely steep learning curve yet provided immense value. These artists were pioneers and didn't initially do it just for the money. These artists were driven by virtue. The were pioneers that eventually conquered these industries and profited immensely for their valuable contributions.
"People are using computers to create incredible digital art, but there's limited means to display, sell, or monitize it."
There is infinite possibilities in displaying and monetizing digital art both in the 3d and 2d sense such as merchandising (prints, t-shirts etc) games, film, tictok, steam, youtube (which utilizes rights management technology) and ever emerging platforms which will likely rely on highly thought out blockchain systems etc. Selling and monetizing artwork is only possible if it is inherently valuable based upon the factors explained earlier.
"Fuck the pixel apes or punks...check out some people like Zach Lieberman, Joshua Davis, Casey Reas, and Mark Dorf. These are people who are using programming, coding, augmented reality, and algorithmic functions to make beautiful dynamic and generative art."
Yes, them and many, many more just like them. This is due to the mainstream adoption, normalization and affordability of the technology which used to create this art. If they are truly pioneers then their works should stand on its own merits and be revolutionary, in turn leading them into the brand/commercial realm of art which is were the real money is at. I'm sure if they were great (and I'll be honest I haven't heard of a single one of them) they would be household names.
Economics 101, the more saturated the market is, the cheaper an item becomes. This is evident in photography. Prior to the advent of mainstream digital photography, very few could actually call themselves professionals, now anyone with an Iphone calls themselves a photographer. This forces potential clients and customers to dig through coal to find a diamond. Many can still make a huge name for themselves based upon factors explained earlier however it becomes much harder to do so due to the sheer amount of terrible "photographers" saturating the market.
"Value is completely subjective. The speculator people who are doing all these million dollar bored ape and pixelated unicorn things are actually helping digital artists by creating a precedent of value for their work and this medium."
Wrong. It is harming what art originally stood for. Art should be beautiful, captivating, have technical and artistic merit and elicit a powerful emotional response from the viewer. Post modernism is not art. Classical beauty is now considering frivolous and shunned. Our world has become ugly and the post modern art is a reflection of our ugly society. Ugly art selling for millions doesn't mean all ugly art will sell for millions.
"These digital artists previously had no way to monitize their digital creations, even though they're all hugely respected and revered in their fields. Now they do."
I'm sorry but this is wrong. NFTs are not the only possible way digital artists can make money. It is simply another way they can potentially make money.
"The possibilities of what uses could evolve for NFT are limitless, and the whole scene is being created as we speak."
Yes this is indeed true. The technology has the potential for great things but at the moment its nothing more than a poorly thought out cash grab.
"NFT's could help artists license out their work to businesses that would like to use it, instead of having it stolen and not really having any recourse to prevent theft."
Eventually but not at the moment. The closest thing that came to this in the form of an integrated rights management crypto platform was kodakcoin and that never even had a chance to get off the ground due to being abandoned. At the moment, NFTs are only linked to the artwork related to it (commonly only in the form of a link, which means its hosting can eventually be shutdown or moved etc and is dependent on the person hosting said link).
A quick break down of proof of ownership in NFTs only means to "establish a verified and public proof of ownership. Copies of the original file are not restricted to the owner of the NFT, and can be copied and shared like any file."
"The function of defined ownership creates scarcity, and that in turn makes the digital art world more like a microcosm of how the IRL fine art world works, except with normal people dictating the value of something as opposed to snobby high art gatekeepers."
You are misinformed on the proof of ownership understanding of NFTs. An artist can make endless derivatives of their self produced digital art (quickly and easily) and sell, a single, multiple or series of NFTs of these derivatives while still retaining the original copyright to their work. All that the purchaser of the NFT will receive is a proof of ownership of only that NFT and generally nothing more (except perhaps a product or whatever maybe sold along with that NFT which ties into the commecial potential of NFT technology such as the Skyline NFT Nissan sold which included an actual Skyline as part of the purchase).
The artwork can still effectively be copied, pirated etc (if disregarding rights such as copyright etc, which is near impossible to enforce online anyways).
Digital files due to their very nature can be copied so your analogy to fine art doesn't make sense. Even when technological copy protections are in place, these can be circumvented easily. The only way an artist can be completely covered from a rights management standpoint is an NFT block chain system integrating rights management but this will have to be brought in by a corporate powerhouse such as Google or Facebook, further entrenching this tech into a centralized system for enforcement which appears to be defeating the whole "decentralized" ideology of this technology to begin with.
"Also: owning some original NFT from an artist on your computer may not seem like it's a big deal now, but as we migrate further into digital worlds (VR...metaverse, etc), these works and their ability to be displayed and viewed in digital spaces will make the concept of ownership make more sense."
"We"? I have absolutely no intention on supporting Metaverse, vr tech, augmented tech or plugging the back of my head into the matrix because that movie told me what can happen if I do... That's not to say there wont be people that will happily rush into this tech in order to get an endless rush of dopamine, to satisfy their egotistical urges and to speculate.
"People already pay a good chunk of change for skins or accessories in video games. That is the direction we're heading, so while the NFT may seem like it lacks utility now, it may have all the utility in the world as technology and the way we interact continues to evolve"
"People"? By people you mean consoomers. "The way we interact continues to evolve"? No this is just the way corporations continue to push new ways we should be interacting. Nothing about this is natural evolution. This is completely artificially planned and strategically pushed. In the early days of subculture, brands and corporations always attempted to co opt these subcultures for commercial gain. Eventually corporations cracked the formula and popular culture became subverted. This has only amplified in recent years due to corporate strangle hold on nearly every aspect of daily life. Corporations have already jumped into NFTs so please don't try and tell me that any of this is an organic evolution of culture, interaction or what ever.
I welcome debate, come at me bro.