De-evolution of digital reproducibility

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Hundreds of years ago, our ancestors bought ‘this‘ unique horse or ‘that’ unique horse, not ‘the’ horse. For us, today, it seems obvious that two automobiles of the same model are identical to each other and that no one owns a unique incarnation of ‘the’ car. Sometimes, it is observable that people put e.g., stickers on their cars, to support individualism on an automobile that is perfectly identical to thousands of others of its kind (Floridi, 2010). Amongst other factors, this is due to the inherent human need to feel special relative to others and to discover one’s own unique identity (Schumpe and Erb, 2015). 

In the digital world, the reproduction of digital goods comes at extremely low marginal costs (Shapiro and Varian, 1998) as, once created, information is perfectly copyable. This means further erosion of personal identity, where anonymous users are exposed to billions of other similar information entities. Floridi continues that, as a response to gain a sense of uniqueness, many people deliberately post and share personal information about them on social media to become less informationally anonymous. While privacy remains highly important, it is used by some as a form of capital that can be invested or paid with, to construct themselves as unique individuals in an informationally mass-produced world. Something that seems to halt the infinite reproduction of digital goods are NFTs.

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), a new technology, are not interchangeable, digital objects with unique attributes. Their underlying blockchain technology enables NFTs to be 1) Non-fungible: every NFT is unique and not interchangeable with another NFT. 2) Indivisible: an NFT cannot be used by two entities simultaneously (e.g. no two persons can use the same plane ticket at one time). 3) Scarce: their value is driven by their scarcity. 4) Transparent: due to the distributed and public nature of blockchain, NFTs are authenticated by all users of the network. This means that ownership is proven and immutable. Being the original owner of a given NFT cannot be imitated. 5) Interoperability: open standards such as ERC-721 and ERC-1155 allow NFT trade across different blockchains and decentralized ledger technologies via bridges (Hedera, 2021).

The application possibilities for NFTs are numerous. Due to their claim of ownership, any unique piece of digital data is traceable through a blockchain such as Ethereum. Thus, NFTs can be used for digital art, software, and real-world items such as car deeds, event tickets, invoices, legal documents (e.g., smart contracts that self-execute once a condition between two parties is met (Investopedia, 2021), signatures (Ethereum.org, n.d.) and many more.

The philosopher Walter Benjamin stated in 1935 that machinal reproduction of art, e.g., print at that time, lacks one fundamental element for perfect reproductivity: its unique appearance in space and time, “…its unique existence at a place where it happens to be…”. The uniqueness of an object and its “one-timeliness” when it is experienced, cannot be reproduced. Benjamin describes this as “Aura”, which can only be attributed to the original work (Cultural Studies Now, 2013).

In the digital age, no one has ever directly and uniquely interacted with something at a unique place (apart from data on a server farm). The capability to reproduce any digital media removes uniqueness and exchanges it with mass reproduction. With each actualization of digital media, a human user is thus generating another copy of an already countlessly copied entity. Its “Aura” thus has been lost (Scobel, 2021).

With their attribute of being perfectly cloneable, digital goods resist information decay, whereas information is lost when copying the copy of a copy… of e.g., a physical photo with a printer. While the loss of information is resisted, the loss of uniqueness, the “Aura” starts with the first copy, its scarcity with every other.

One can thus make an assumption that NFTs revert this trend, by being a de-evolution of the digital cloning process. NFTs decrease the loss of the “Aura”, enabling digital goods to exist as unique entities.

Now, what could this mean for digital business models?

There might be future business models that focus on delivering value as unique digital (Or physical experienced coupled with digital technology) entertainment experiences. Those might happen as a unique event, in an exclusive time, and unique space generated exclusively for individual participants, groups, or masses of people. (e.g., in Virtual Reality). So how could NFTs be used in such a business model where the uniqueness is interchangeable with the perishing of a one-time consumed experience, while NFTs store their value in their long-time existence on a blockchain? NFTs could be used, as souvenirs, proves of participation, and other unique objects that were generated in a one-time experience, collected by the user.

References

Ethereum. (n.d.). Non-fungible tokens (NFT). Ethereum.Org. Retrieved October 2, 2021, from https://ethereum.org/en/nft/

Smart Contracts: What You Need to Know. (n.d.). Investopedia. Retrieved October 2, 2021, from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/smart-contracts.asp#:%7E:text=A%20smart%20contract%20is%20a,a%20distributed%2C%20decentralized%20blockchain%20network

Walter Benjamin’s concept of “Aura” and Authenticity in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” (2013, May 5). Cultural Studies Now. https://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.com/2013/05/walter-benjamins-concept-of-aura-and.html

H. (2021, September 29). What is a non-fungible token (NFT)? Hedera. https://hedera.com/learning/what-is-a-non-fungible-token-nft

Floridi, L. (2010). Information: A Very Short Introduction (Illustrated ed.). Oxford University Press.

Shapiro, Carl, and Hal R. Varian. “VERSIONING: THE SMART WAY TO SELL INFORMATION.” Harvard Business Review, Nov.-

Dec. 1998, p. 106. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A53221402/AONE?u=erasmus&sid=bookmark-

AONE&xid=00c63221. Accessed 13 Sept. 2021.