from the I-want-NFTs-of-my-favorite-AI-models dept.
Starbucks is pulling the plug on Odyssey, its Web3 rewards program that gave members access to collectible NFTs. The company updated its FAQ on Friday to let members know that the beta program is closing on March 31, and they have a little over a week left to complete any remaining activities (called journeys). Those will shut down March 25. Users won't lose their Stamps (Starbucks' NFTs), which are hosted on Nifty Gateway, but they'll have to sign up for Nifty using their Starbucks Rewards email to access them there, if they haven't already.
[...] In a conversation with TechCrunch published just last month, Odyssey community lead Steve Kaczynski emphasized the community element, saying, "I've seen that people who live in California in the Starbucks Odyssey community are really good friends with people in Chicago and they have met up in real life at times. This never would have happened if not for Web3." But it's 2024, and brands and consumers alike have long since moved on from NFTs. (Naturally, Forum3, which worked with Starbucks on Odyssey, seems to have pivoted to AI).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Thursday March 21 2024, @02:43PM (11 children)
NFTs aren't it, for pretty much anything. Except for just playing around and having fun, I guess? People can have odd hobbies and that's fine. Building a business model around selling a "special copy" (meta data making it special) of a picture is patently stupid. Unless you have enough rubes.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 21 2024, @03:47PM (8 children)
NFT "one of a kind" tokens make sense for "once in a lifetime" kind of digital things. I have a hard time imagining them having great value when traded, but maybe try this scenario:
Electronic Arts could run annual online competitions in their games. Winners of various levels of these competitions could be awarded NFTs. Original owners of these NFTs might "display them on a digital wall" as points of pride for winning the regional quarter finals of Zork, or whatever the game of the moment is. EA could also grant current owners of the NFTs certain benefits: discounts on pre-release games, admission to events, etc. I could imagine the global annual winner of GTA racing getting an NFT which includes benefits of two free tickets to the Formula 1 race of their choosing as well as lesser things... The original owner/winner of that NFT may choose to redeem the benefits for themself, or sell/assign the NFT to another person who then has rights to whatever benefits remain associated with the NFT. Note that the 2025 GTA global champion will always be the same person, listed as the original owner of the associated NFT, they can still display that on their "digital wall" forever, it's just the associated (as yet unclaimed) rights that can be assigned to a new owner.
For a daily coffee? I don't see NFTs making sense there at all. I did have an idea about "Karla's Krazy Koffee Koins" where coffee customers might "invest" in fungible digital coins exchangeable for coffee at a coffee shop or chain, which would function a bit like cash, a bit like securities, a bit like pokemon cards, depending on how the regulators choose to look at it... but my web hosting provider is in the process of transferring operations to their parent company, so finding that bit in an accessible form is challenging at the moment.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday March 21 2024, @07:34PM (5 children)
Thing is you don't need NFTs for any of that either; I mean steam has "badges" and "acheivements" and "tradeable and non-tradeable items (including coupons and so forth)" etc; and no NFT technology were required to make ANY of that work. And adding NFTs don't really add anything useful to it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 21 2024, @07:52PM (4 children)
Well, assuming there's a "NFT processing fabric" out there (that isn't skimming a deep cut of every transaction), the NFT can be sold and purchased on the exchange(s) and the new owners can reap any benefits of ownership, even if that's only holding and "empty" NFT with no more benefits attached, like a baseball card after the gum has been chewed.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday March 22 2024, @02:02PM (1 child)
The difference is that the baseball card is a physical thing that actually exists in 3D space and time. The NFT is a glorified bitmap file. Assuming you ever want anyone else to see it, then others have stupidly large amounts of ways to make copies of said "special one of a kind" thing. It's a giant pyramid scheme, without any relation to physical goods or services. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised though, because people spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on "outfits and color schemes" for characters in games. Kids nowadays hardly know what a "normal game" is, they've always had smartphones, they've always had advertisements in their games, and they've always had microtransactions.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 22 2024, @03:26PM
The bitmap file is just a visualization.
The essence of the NFT is the "wallet" (in bitcoin terms, if you will allow it) ID which is recorded on the supposedly immortal globally shared blockchain record of similar NFT "minting" declarations and transfers. Whoever holds (and hasn't lost) the private key corresponding to the public key (wallet ID) recorded on the blockchain can thereby "prove ownership" of the bitmap or whatever it is that is recorded on the chain (probably a digital signature of the bitmap).
Yes, pictures can be copied. As can physical baseball cards. And checks. My bank printed me off a dozen paper checks for my account from the ordinary laser printer on some nice perforated paper and the final product is indistinguishable from paper checks ordered from the professional print house. As it has been since checking accounts began: it's not the paper you're holding that's worth something, it's the official/accepted record of value behind it that gets you paid.
The thing NFTs have that paper checks and baseball cards don't have are those all too easy to lose private keys which prove ownership in a very different way than holding some tree pulp with ink on it.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by SomeRandomGeek on Friday March 22 2024, @09:56PM (1 child)
This raises an interesting point. Now that NFTs have gone bust, are the companies providing the NFT fabric legally on the hook to continue to provide it? Will they have to continue to provide it forever or until they go bankrupt? Or can they just quietly sweep the whole thing under the rug?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 22 2024, @10:21PM
>are the companies providing the NFT fabric legally on the hook to continue to provide it?
I believe that's what bankruptcy proceedings are for.
I also believe there's a sucker born every minute, and they'll continue to profit off of operation of the NFT fabric long after NFTs have faded from the mainstream press, back into the seedy Bingo parlors and "internet gaming cafes" on the wrong side of the tracks.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday March 22 2024, @02:11PM (1 child)
The problem with "once in a lifetime" digital things is that they don't exist. Sure an artist can create a "once in a lifetime" piece of art. The problem is that when it's "born digital" material, there can be an indefinite number of copies for minimal cost. Assuming we're talking about something like your standard jpeg, it's effectively infinite. When the only "difference" between my copy of a picture and your copy of a picture is that yours has a "made in china" tag in the meta data. Does that really make your picture any different than mine?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 22 2024, @03:53PM
Perception is all there is.
If I win the EA Gran Turismo world championship on my Play Station console, does that event "not exist" because it's just a bunch of numbers represented as illuminated phosphors on various screens around the world?
>there can be an indefinite number of copies for minimal cost
Absolutely. I have created such art, and it is indeed a hard sell compared with
fingeroil paints and other more physical media. However, showing prints in nice frames at a local restaurant, personally handing off the signed / numbered print to a customer - I did manage to sell a few for a few hundred dollars each. That "public recognition" of others seeing, and recognizing, the art raises its perceived value - much like those asinine monkeys associated with NFTs in the global zeitgeist.>Does that really make your picture any different than mine?
Perception is all there is.
Some people take pride in personally supporting the arts. Having publicly recognizable "proof of ownership" does matter, to some people. In the rarefied air around globally recognized collectible artists (Pollack, Monet, Picasso, Dali, DaVinci, Rafael) counterfeiting and misrepresentation is rampant, yet values remain higher than most peoples' net worth - mostly based on "proofs of provenance" far flimsier than blockchain.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Thursday March 21 2024, @05:15PM (1 child)
The "coupon" of the zoomer generation.
The Great Depression generation grew up with ration books in WWII and had a huge interest in re-enactment via coupons. I'm sure we'll never quite get rid of NFTs filling the same purpose for broccoli hairs.
NFTs will probably be known as the "coupon of the Biden Depression" or something like that.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 21 2024, @06:08PM
Depression? You mean an economic depression? [wikipedia.org]:
Given that US GDP has increased [statista.com] during the Biden administration, especially after the horrendous global downturn caused by the COVID pandemic, which had already begun [statista.com] long before Biden took office, it's not clear to me what the hell you're blathering on about. Then again, you usually spout bullshit, so I shouldn't really be surprised.
(Score: 2, Touché) by istartedi on Thursday March 21 2024, @03:58PM
Remember that weird Kia ad with the skeletons or whatever? It was so odd I got curious and researched it. Turns out they also caught the NFT bust. Those skeletons were NFTs that they must have thought were going to make Kia really cool. I can imagine it being approved at some meeting during the frenzy, then taking months to get from concept to finished commercial just in time for us to all go "WTF is that? Are they doubling down on Killed In Action?"
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by stratified cake on Thursday March 21 2024, @04:57PM
Maybe Square Enix can get out as well before they kill all their good studios trying to build a league for racing dead horses.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday March 21 2024, @05:16PM (1 child)
Starbucks, Web3 and NFTs in one attractive package? It's missing cryptocurrency and AI, but yeah: sign me up!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday March 22 2024, @02:14PM
Don't worry the cryptocurrency and AI tie-ins can easily be added for a nominal monthly subscription.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 21 2024, @06:18PM (4 children)
here [web3isgoinggreat.com] yet.
But I expect it will make it soon. Because Web3 is going just great!
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Freeman on Friday March 22 2024, @02:05PM (3 children)
Web 3.0 is about as helpful as Web 2.0.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 24 2024, @02:25AM (2 children)
Web3 is not web3.0 [cointelegraph.com]
Bible thumping moron.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 25 2024, @04:29PM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3 [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web [wikipedia.org]
Nice, great naming scheme. Must have taken a queue from Intel.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 25 2024, @04:32PM
I still stand by the "Web3" is as helpful as "Web 2.0" or "Semantic Web", etc. It's your boss's new favorite term to push via corporate wide emails.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"