The reason that so many are willing to pay for NFTs is that we have so much money and nothing left to buy.
That may seem glib at a time when many are facing energy and even food poverty, but things in the real world are plentiful and cheap and many people have huge amounts of disposable income loosing value thanks to rampant inflation.
Capitalism was bought out by the Chinese communists and a tiny handful of tech execs and is well and truly broken.
One solution it you have too much ’money’ is to go ’upmarket’ and pay £40k for a handbag, or £2m for a tiny flat. you may do this because you believe that they will be worth more in the future, or simply because you can.
That still curries favour in developing or emerging countries, but in places where consumerism has been mainstream for centuries, in the land of Aldi and Primark, it is now regarded with disdain. It is what those who got rich in oil states or dictatorships do.
So, the alternative is to abstract consumerism into cyberspace or the ’metaverse’ (yes that Second Life space that has been there for decades.
There exist new opportunities for buying and selling. not real stuff that might or might not be in short supply (consider how supply of gold and platinum have gone up but prices have gone up also. in theory, more supply should lead to lower prices, but the key factor is that demand has gone up. So, gold and diamonds have little intrinsic value, they simply have a demand value. Hence NFTs.
Basically, bottle some air and sell it. saying it’s worthless is irrelevant. Asking who will paybthe most for it is. That’s the NFT business model.
Of course, each bottle of air is bottled at a different time in a different place, so is unique, and therefore commands a different price.
If no I you will pay for powers or swords or shields in your virtual game, of course you will pay for prime real estate in Cyberspace (or the Metaverse) (or someone else’s code on some one else’s remotely hosted service).