NFT Vending Machine? I. JUST. CAN'T.

Trust me when I tell you that I am not a Luddite.

I'm no one's idea of an early adopter, but I'm not a techno laggard, either.

But Non-Functional Tokens (NFTs)? Your very own piece of art-by-vaporware, to have (virtually) and to hold (digitally)? I. JUST. CAN'T.

Apparently, however, SOME. PEOPLE. CAN. 

At least that's what Neon thinks. They've just installed:

...the first in-person non-fungible token (NFT) vending machine in New York City, aiming to make online art pieces as easily available as soda or a candy bar. (Source: Reuters)

To refresh my readers - even those who aren't Luddites - an NFT work of art is a digital representation of something or other. You can show it off to anyone you want on your smartphone, but if you want to hang it on your wall, you've got to make a physical version of it. And it's all - what else - tied in with cryptocurrency.

Got it?

Lots of celebs (athletes, entertainers) have gotten into the NFT businesses, selling digital pictures - often "arty" - of their puss, with maybe an autograph thrown in. You get to collect them the way you might have collected baseball cards as a kid, only you can't flip NFT's. Nor can you secure them to your bicycle spokes with a clothespin, so that when you pedal around the neighborhood, your bike makes a very satisfying clack-ing noise. 

Melania Trump has gotten in the grift act, and recently added an NFT to the bundle when she sold the hat she wore to meet President Macron of France. The NFT was of a watercolor of the hat. Unfortunately, Mel didn't get the exorbitant price she was asking, and tried to salvage her pride by buying it herself, behind the scenes, to make it appear as if there was interest.

Hipster artists love NFT's, too. 

Banksy - and is there a hipster-er artist anywhere - recently banksied a bundle by segmenting one of his works of art into 10,000 NFT's and selling the digital/fractional bits off to folks who couldn't afford a physical Banksy work in its entirety.

The Neon vending machine sells digital art, not digital Tom Brady or Gronk "cards." But it's a sale with a twist.  

The twist? You have no idea what piece of digital art you might purchase.

"It's the crypto curious, the people who tried to buy cryptocurrency or they were interested in buying an NFT, but they just hit too many barriers," Neon CEO Kyle Zappitell said in an interview with Reuters, of the vending machine's target customer.

Crypto curious. Oy! 

Located in a small storefront in Lower Manhattan's financial district with a sign outside saying "NFT ATM," it looks like a traditional vending machine, but offers QR codes that come on slips in small paper boxes. The drops range in price from $5.99 to $420.69.

Once the QR code is scanned, the user can see their new piece of art on any smartphone, laptop or tablet.

Unlike a classic vending machine that vends, say, a variety of snacks, the Neon NFT machine only offers two possibilities. You're either going to get an NFT of a color. Or a picture of a pigeon.

I may not be crypto curious, but I'm sure curious about someone who'd pay $420.69 - and is this supposed to be some hardy-har-har code for 4/20 (something of a national holiday for the cannibis crowd) and 69 (with its Beavis and Butthead dirty-little-snigger connotation) - for an NFT of a pigeon. Or a color swatch.

I realize that the rising generations want to travel light, but I just don't get the appeal of NFT's, other than in a kind of Pet Rock fad sort of way. Because that's how I think of NFT's: they're a fad, combined with gambling that the value for a few bytes of nothingness will increase in value. 

All the colors, by the way, are unique. According to Neon - which has gotten $3M in seed money from investo-gamblers - "there will only ever be 16,777,215 colors" on the Internet. I guess the thinking is that, if you can even sell 10% of those colors for $5.99 - let alone $420.69 - the investo-gamblers will handily make back their investment. 

Personally, I'm just as happy flipping through my Benjamin Moore fan deck, which doesn't have anywhere near 16, 777,215 colors, but has plenty enough for me to pick from when it comes to the bedroom and the downstairs hall. Hard enough to make a choice from the 3,500 colors BM offers, let alone from more than 16 million. 

As for a color NFT, if I were to buy one - which I most assuredly will not - the QR code that comes randoing out of the vending machine would probably be a color I hated. Like pinky tan. (And I'm not wild about pigeons, either.)

Give me the choice and advanture of an old time vending machine any old day.

Do I want M&M Peanut or a Butterfinger? Will it accept the tattered bill I'm inserting? Will my choice start whirling out, only to stop dead halfway to release? Will I have to pound the glass to get it moving? Enlist some burly passers by to pick the machine up and give it a good shake? 

Where's the poetry, where's the fun, in a little box containing a slip of paper bearing a QR code?

Yankee Swap item maybe...

Ah, NFT Vending Machines...

All I can say is, stop the metaverse, I want to get off.