For the most part, I don’t really watch sports. I’ll watch the @warriors around playoff time, but I always thought sports were just an escapist pursuit. Over the past few years, I have been thinking of shoes in terms of sports, as there are some very vague similarities, especially because I have been using ‘sports cards’ as the basis for many of my ‘sneaker cards’.
I think people like sports because it really isn’t as ambiguous as the pundits would have us believe. Sure, you can have your opinions, but at the end of the day, when the buzzer rings, there is always a clear winner and a clear loser.
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I think part of the thing a lot of us like about NFTs, as collectibles, is that it really is just black and white. Authenticity is on the Ethereum blockchain - an immutable source. Sure, there are scams and there are people who are certainly trying to profit off of the ignorant in the marketplace, but there is a very clear line between ‘authentic’ and fake’. There is simply no question about authenticity…and that makes collecting them easy.
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Shoes as collectibles, on the other hand, aren’t really like that. As of this moment, for most ‘collectible’ shoes, there is simply no fool-proof method of determining ‘real’ from ‘fake’. It’s all a guess at this point.
And I think this is why things are the way they are: people knowingly trust untrustworthy companies (middlemen) and simply feign ignorance, or they just say f*ck it and start buying fakes. And, really, can you blame them? How do I skirt the issue? I choose to focus on pairs no one really 'cares' about…you’re talking a guy who owns 10+ pairs of Waffle Racers!
I’ve been beating this drum for a while - if the brands don't care and the middlemen are clearly infallible, why would I put any trust into what anyone is doing? Why would I judge someone for choosing not to participate?