Of course, the "own a stake in what you use" argument might apply in some domains rather than others. There are probably more people excited to get equity in an app than equity in their local waste management company. But that brings up another problem: for large platforms, the value created is often a function of small amounts of value per user mu... See more

But it doesn’t feel too early to ask what might happen in a world where artists keep more or even most of the value that they create. This is personally relevant to me, of course, as a creative type who also stepped away from a “major” — a staff job at a big publication — in favor of selling my work directly to readers. But the larger cultural cons... See more

A digital file, when intersected with the ubiquity and scale of the internet, can be “seen” by anyone. NFTs push the notion even further. By adding to the ideas of abundance and scale those of passionate distribution, patronage, the day-one fan and, yes, ownership. Concepts associated with scarcity, now distributed out to the abundant world at larg... See more

In media, NFTs—or Non-Fungible Tokens—make it possible for creators to retain ownership of their content, without limiting the propagation of their files across the internet. As a result, NFTs have the potential to invert the ownership model of media—offering creators, their audiences, and developers who build for them, a viable alternative to plat... See more