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+title: The NFT+VR Cash Grab
+date: December 29, 2021 20:32
+---
+<p>
+I used to play Team Fortress 2, a 3D hat simulator also known for having a
+decent team based first person shooter included as a mini game. The game, and
+gameplay time on official servers, was offered for free, but Valve still made a
+ton of money by selling cosmetic items to players. I don't play games these
+days, but from what I hear, there are many other modern games like League of
+Legends or Fortnite whose business models center around selling player skins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Making money off of video game skins is a very shrewd idea: you pay for a few
+hours of a graphic designer's time, and from then on can sell limitless copies
+of the item, each sale being instantaneous, requiring no shipping, no storage,
+no store front. If you're able to pull it off, it's better than print-on-demand
+or drop shipping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But so far this sort of model has been mostly limited to gaming. This is a very
+specific demographic, mostly male, skews towards younger people, and even among
+them, only the gamers most emotionally invested in the game will be willing to
+spend money on cosmetic items.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, if Fortnite skin sales can support a large development studio that then
+ends up with enough money for some of the craziest marketing stunts, imagine the
+profits if you could widen the demographic from "gamer" to "your average
+internet user".
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This is exactly the opportunity that Zuck and others are investing billions of
+dollars into under the memes of VR and NFTs. By directing your average internet
+user into a virtual reality as a primary means of interacting with social
+circles, work, and digital media, and doing so in an anthropomorphized avatar (a
+word that became increasingly creepy with each repetition of it from Zuck's
+mouth during the Meta announcement), Meta and others focused on VR will create
+emotional attachment to a gamified reality where products can be produced even
+more cheaply than previously possible with humid sweatshops and child labor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VR didn't succeed at first because it was just a gimmick that made some people
+puke, but there wasn't enough profit to be made for companies to keep investing
+into research and development around it. With the perfect storm of "NFT"
+becoming the hottest Silicon Valley buzzword and more people switching to a
+work-from-home lifestyle, some of the tech opportunists, including Zuck, must
+have finally put 2 and 2 together, finally seeing a reason to begin pumping cash
+into VR again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The medium is the message. It is far less important what VR will be used for (it
+will still be just social media, online shopping, communications, gaming, and
+other entertainment, like current technologies), far more important how it can
+be used to affect people and their behaviors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Furthermore, do not get your hopes up thinking that by embracing NFTs, Facebook
+or any other big tech silo is going to move towards decentralization. "NFT" just
+stands for "non-fungible token", there's nothing about decentralization in the
+name. Do you really think Zuck will use decentralized, trustless, uncensorable
+protocols like Ethereum, or will it be safer (from his profits' perspective) to
+put everything on Libra/Diem, or even more likely, just chuck it all in a
+database? Oh, Zuck promised you interoperability with other "metaverse"
+protocols? Yeah, that's just going to be an API hosted in Meta's data centers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+TF2 hats are NFTs. Fortnite skins are NFTs. To illustrate the point, this post
+is now an NFT, running on the m-chrzan.xyz ledger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I'm air dropping it to Tom Fasano. The bottom of this post will work as a public
+block explorer of the ledger. If the current owner of the NFT wants to transfer
+it, he or she should email me and provide me with acceptable contact details
+(ideally email+PGP key or an XMPP address) of the new owner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For those curious about technical details of the m-chrzan.xyz ledger, here is
+the whitepaper:
+
+<blockquote>
+  The m-chrzan.xyz ledger is based on novel PoM (Proof of Martin) technology.
+  The ledger is guaranteed to be secure and live as long as 100% of the Martins
+  running it act honestly and maintain uptime.
+</blockquote>
+</p>
+
+<h3> The m-chrzan.xyz Ledger: </h3>
+
+<p>
+History of ownership of the m-chrzan.xyz/blog/the-nft-vr-cash-grab.html NFT:
+
+<ol>
+  <li>Tom Fasano (minted on December 29, 2021)</li>
+</ol>