I imagine it could actually develop into a similar situation for physical art. There is an original work that is worth a lot because humans are weird like that, and an entire industry of experts who try to sort out the actual original NFT that was minted by the artist over the duplicates and fakes.
For example, we know the original creator of Nyan Cat came out of the woodwork to retroactively mint an NFT for it, https://foundation.app/@NyanCat/nyan-cat-219, which sold for 300 ETH. Obviously, anyone can create an NFT with the same gif, but we are reasonably certain that the actual created this ONE and declared it be the original.
Obviously, this is a very odd thing to try to wrap your head around, but is it really that different from valuing original physical artwork?
This is the equivalent of someone seeing how much a Picasso sells and wondering if they should become an artist. For every success, there are 10,000 failures.
That's true, but in the Picasso scenario I actually need to learn to do art. In the NFT case, apparently a 3rd grade level of photoshop skills would do.
Don't mistake extreme technical skill as being the sole reason humans value things. Sometimes, it's just about being the first to effectively convey a new idea, and the crudeness of the execution doesn't matter. And there are plenty of extremely skilled artists that spend decades mastering their craft whose work is effectively worthless, because they're not actually breaking new ground.
In hindsight, I was making a joke that seeing the value of an NFT has convinced me to make NFT's - and that this is the very cycle which has made NFT's valuable.
I was not actually implying that I would literally start making NFT's right now.
I did however forget that jokes and humor were against Hackernews rules, and for that I thank you kind sir for the reminder.
It sold for 74 ETH.