this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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What if that digital file is the title to your car, deed to your home, your college degree, passport, driver’s license, etc?
Living in a digital world there are IMO fascinating use cases for unique (read non-copyable, self-custodied) digital objects.
What I’m not interested in are assumptions of limitations for things we barely understand.
If you destroy the hard drive they're stored on, it's no different than burning a piece of paper they're written on. Data is always stored in a medium, whether it's paper or a disk drive. So for digital files like that, you would choose a storage medium that is rated for long-term storage and put it in a fireproof safe. Done.
You're basically asking "what if you lose the title to your car?" Well, there's plenty of ways to get a replacement title, even though they're not easy or free.
The bottom line is data is real and it's always in a storage medium. The storage medium is what you should be worried about more.
Oh wait, that NFT you "own" is stored on someone else's server? Oh wait, I guess you don't own it then, because that data is on a hard drive owned by someone else in the "cloud" and if they destroy that drive, they also destroyed the item you ostensibly "own."
Oh the server with my Title Deed for my home went down and now I have no proof I own my own home? Probably should have kept a copy of the file locally!
There is nothing interesting about NFTs because they're a fundamental, nay, purposeful misunderstanding of what data is and how it works.
Sorry my question was poorly formed. You were talking about digital files being stored perfectly fine on a local medium. I was talking about new use cases for unique digital objects, and gave examples of different kinds of existing credentials/titles.
A scan of my Title Deed or my Vehicle Title will already be unique digital files. They can be copied infinitely so I can never lose track of them. I can even take a hash of the original file and always keep that around to make sure I'm always dealing with an original copy.
What does storing it on someone else's property (server) and just linking to it actually achieve for me, as a person? The NFT does not change the data of the original file in any way, it's just a hash-check itself in many ways.
Would you be okay with storing your car in someone else's garage that you couldn't actually see or access, but were told was secure? That's what you're doing with an NFT. You're putting the actual item you own on someone else's private property, and then claiming that a piece of paper that shows ownership (NFT) is all you need to get it back. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.
An NFT is much more a "certificate of authenticity" than it is a title of ownership.
¯\(ツ)/¯