Culture
Disney finds out about NFTs, scams internet with $400 Spider-Man
People still bought it, of course.
Disney’s net worth is approximately $122 billion, around $10 billion of which is thanks to Marvel. We feel it necessary to remind you of these figures before we move on to the next bit of financial information: the two companies recently “released” an ugly, last-last-gen console-style 3D model of Spider-Man in five different poses as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) ranging in price from $40 to $400. The most expensive can be seen above, with the “cheaper” variant below:
As Kotaku notes, “the platform hosting them will let you drop them in a virtual gallery... and they can also be used as AR objects on your phone.” We’d tell you what else it can do, if there was anything. But, apparently, that’s about it. They were also available in “limited supplies” which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, given that they are digital files and thus able to be replicated as many times as either Marvel and / or Disney wanted. We assume it was to increase the NFTs’ nonsensical “scarcity,” which would be amusing if it wasn’t so depressing.
So many questions — We have many questions. Why did Disney and Marvel do this? How much money did they actually make from their grift? It couldn’t be all that much, given the NFTs’ relative price and made-up inventory. Did it honestly need the extra few thousand dollars? Was this for someone’s cruel amusement to test just how much excess cash Disney can wring from people’s wallets?
To make up for the House of Mouse’s latest sins, please feel free to download this Spider-Man not-NFT we just made:
NFTs: Never Failing To scam — Pretty good, right? Anyway, the sentiment truly stands after Disney and Marvel’s latest little cash grab. We have seemed to reach the point in NFTs’ simultaneously surprising and not-at-all surprising lifespan when a new, obviously greed-motivated iteration pops up every week or so... and then someone (for some reason that remains far beyond us) actually goes ahead and pays money for the thing.
Actually, “thing,” is somewhat misleading, since it implies a corporeal form. NFTs, by our estimates, are little more than glorified online sticky notes posted on the leftovers within the back of the internet’s fridge. And yet they continue to be “minted” for extremely online people with extreme amounts of excess cash.
All this said, there are still a few instances of NFTs coming in handy for creators and artists finally getting paid their proper due. But for the most part, we are very much over NFTs, and hope this is just a one-off from Disney and Marvel.
