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Key takeaways from NFTs and a Thousand True Fans

Non-fungible tokens offer fundamentally better economics for creators by removing rent-seeking, enabling granular pricing, and reducing customer acquisition costs. Open at source

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To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans. A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce. These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they will purchase your next figurine sight unseen; they will pay for the “best-of” DVD version of your free YouTube channel; they will come to your chef’s table once a month.

On Substack, 1,000 newsletter subscribers paying $10/month nets over $100K/year to the writer.

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A lot of the conversation is about NFTs as an evolution of fine art collecting, only with digital art.
In the boring, technical sense that every NFT is a unique token on the blockchain. But while it could be like a van Gogh, where there’s only one definitive actual version, it could also be like a trading card, where there’s 50 or hundreds of numbered copies of the same artwork.
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An essential part of NFTs’ value is that they don’t convey anything resembling traditional ownership.  When patrons support artists with a grant—and perhaps receive a public thanks from the artist—they are not buying works, but rather publicly signaling their commitment to the artist, intertwining their respective reputations. They are conspicuously consuming vapors, and the very intangibility of the benefits contributes to the conspicuousness.
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