To be fair, the concept of an NFT was very cool when it was first imagined, but then all people used NFTs for was stupid gifs to be sold like trading cards or fucking pogs...

But the concept is cool if you actually use it for something. For instance, you can create an NFT as a digital key (like a literal key that unlocks something) or as a legal deed that proves ownership of something. Then you have a digital asset that can be resold or folded into a smart contract, where the digital item actually controls something physical. For instance, you could design an NFT to be the actual key that can unlock and start a car. If you sell this digital asset, you will not be able to start the car, but the new owner will. That is cool, monkey gifs are stupid bullshit. And if you try to convince people to buy bullshit, that makes you a scammer.

But Etherium didn't invent the stupid bullshit, they just created a system that made more interesting things possible. And then with the power to do anything, some people made the stupidest shit in the world. It's like, you can hand someone a pencil and paper and some people will use that to prove a theorem, some people will sketch a landscape, and some people will draw a huge cock and balls... But you don't blame the people that created the pencil and paper.

the concept of an NFT was very cool when it was first imagined

Going to have to agree to disagree.

It was always vaporware. A bunch of empty promises that predicted a digital monoculture. Feel like I have to carve "Ready Player One was a Dystopia!" on a baseball bat and hit people with it.

So I'm hearing that perhaps the idea I talked about in my example didn't sound cool to you. But it was cool to a lot of people, and your opinion doesn't speak for everyone. And it does work, like today.