Sure, they can be, but they aren't. "NFT" has become synonymous with "selling a jpeg", and that's what the big NFT marketplaces are doing. That's where all the money is. Nobody would care about NFTs if all they were being used for was as "an authorization scheme in dapps".
Like, imagine if JWTs were 99% part of an MLM scheme and 1% used for authentication. People would be skeptical!
By "nobody" I meant "nobody not deeply invested in the technical guts of how Uniswap works". In the same way nobody really cares about JWTs, people care about the stuff they enable. Solving problems inside the crypto ecosystem isn't per se useful or important unless the actual thing it's enabling (in this case Uniswap) is important. Which, okay, maybe it is. But NFTs are a technical detail.
It's when people started hyping up NFTs as their own thing that stuff got weird and stupid. Like, phone numbers are useful, but vanity phone numbers definitely aren't solving any problems other than proving you have one:
NFTs are a technical detail, but they're exciting. I'm also excited about webrtc and webauthn. These technologies enable new businesses to exist, like Uniswap.
> phone numbers are useful, but vanity phone numbers definitely aren't solving any problems other than proving you have one
Vanity phone numbers aren't a terrible comparison to the current NFT art craze.
But also, vanity phone numbers have been popular for as long as I can remember, in every location around the world. This has been true since the invention of the telephone.
It used to be that having a 212 area code number was very prestigious. That was true because it created the appearance of doing business in NYC, which meant you must be important. After all, your business exists in NYC!
Also every possible analog of vanity phone numbers that I can think of has been wildly successful. Squatting domain names comes to mind, but also registering your nickname first on whatever the next hot tech service is. If your Twitter username is <4 characters, you're probably somewhat important, because at the very least it means you were early to Twitter.
The article you linked about phone numbers is exactly the reason why art NFTs are working and will continue to grow.
> “This number gives the impression that I am distinguished, which helps me get business, especially among officials in the state ministries who I am dealing with,” he said. “If I call them from a regular number, they wouldn’t answer my call, but when they see this number, they can’t ignore it because they know a VIP is calling them.”
> “It helps me with marketing the company,” he said. “After getting one for $100, it’s helped my business grow.”
> “He cherishes it,” Mohsen said. “Just like wine, the older it gets the more valuable it becomes.”
This all seems like very normal human stuff to me.
