If you're trying to convince me microtransactions are bad, I'm on your side. I'd like to see Valve just outright ban microtransactions as they are not only predatory, but also arguably a violation of ADA.
One could argue that's better, too - for instance in support of AML, KYC and the ability to reverse erroneous transactions - but the point I was making is that they aren't basically the same thing in this case.
Digital asset should not be worthless if somebody put some work into creating it.
By your definition YouTube videos are worthless, but companies, individuals and Google burn a lot of gas to transport staff and tech, and a lot of electric energy to record videos, convert them into several formats and host them to billions of people.
The asset isn't the image, it's the certificate of authenticity.
> [edit] By your definition YouTube videos are worthless, but companies, individuals and Google burn a lot of gas to transport staff and tech, and a lot of electric energy to record videos, convert them into several formats and host them to billions of people.
Literally nowhere close to the amount of energy expended by blockchains, and they achieve far, far more. The mental gymnastics to justify the sheer global scale of the waste continues, I see. Also, this is just straight up whataboutism.
Based on what I found about Youtube energy consumption, it's somewhere in the 6.38 - 100 TWh range [1] .
If most blockchains (perhaps excluding Bitcoin) moved to Proof Of Stake and cut their energy expedinture to cumulatively use less than 200000 MWh per year, would you consider using them?
CS:GO Skins are semi-fungible Tokens. StatTrak™ skins with counters are complete Non-Fungible Tokens. There's some game that happens to recognize them for in-game use - That's just as true for "NFT Games"
What Valve has banned is NFTs not using Valve's Tokens. It's not because they're decentralized, because I'm certain that NFT games using some other company's centralized platform would be just as unwelcome.
Is this "moral" of valve? No, I don't think it has any high horse moral standing. I think it's practical because Valve has to work with legal frameworks for virtual goods and they can't guarantee that any other token standards work within those frameworks.
All of this is just to say: Digital goods are stupid. Stupid can be fun - I own dozens of skins for various virtual games that i have bought with real money. I also understand that I "own" nothing and could lose them all at any point. I don't care, because I know they're stupid. Anyone trying to sell them as anything but stupid fun (and most companies are, Including Valve, though I think they're the best of the bunch) should be fined for doing so, and draw the ire of consumers.
