Now it has happened - now artists and gallery owners also have to deal with the tiresome subject of “digitization”.
At the latest with the enormous upswing that NFTs have experienced in recent months, it is clear to the informed participants in the art market:
Something substantial is happening here.
This is just the beginning ...
what we have seen in the last few months marks the beginning of a massive digitalization of the art market.
Selling digital art in the form of NFTs is just the beginning:
The “smart contracts” technology on which the NFTs are based is becoming a powerful and multifunctional tool for artists, organizers, gallery owners and collectors.
And possibly for some players that will only arise through these possibilities.
NFTs will serve as admission tickets, allow access to exclusive content, artists can surprise their collectors with "drops" in their wallets and thus communicate directly with them digitally.
And these are all just the obvious uses - far more advanced ones will develop.
Oh ... the art market is very special, nothing will change there ...
You always hear this argument from industries that 4 years later complain that eCommerce would destroy them.
The shoe industry didn't have to worry about eCommerce - after all, you have to try on shoes.
In the meantime, billions are being implemented in Germany through eCommerce in the shoe industry.
And those who held the thesis that shoes must be tried on before buying and therefore the shop is necessary ... these voices fell silent for a long time and their shops disappeared
Books…. you don't buy online - you need the friendly German studies student who gives competent recommendations.
It takes the homely atmosphere of the bookstore ... And then came Amazon.
We could continue the list with food, clothing, and complex products.
It was always explained with great expertise why THIS ONE industry does not suit eCommerce. And it always turned out differently.
And the result ?
Since all these industries have failed to set up their own eCommerce structures in good time, the market participants may have failed to join together to form digital ecosystems, as too many have relied for too long on the fact that this "Internet thing" would pass them by ...
It is precisely for these reasons that only a few digital marketplaces remain - with Amazon at the top - that dictate the rules to both manufacturers and retailers.
If digital change had been accepted in the various industries in good time and solutions had been developed early on ... the eCommerce market would be different today.
And what do we learn from this?
The subject of NFT and the digital art market is still young.
Artists, gallery owners, collectors and organizers still have time to take on the topic for themselves and shape it together.
But if, instead, there is a competitive mindset - that you would rather do nothing than do something with a supposed competitor ... then we will see the effects of eCommerce in the art market as well.
If many individual market participants try to build islands instead of building an ecosystem together, then these islands will sink.
The next Amazons are already in the starting blocks:
As the top dog, Opensea.io has won the first round in the race for relevance in the NFT market.
If the art market does not want platforms like opensea.io to impose the rules on the market participants - then the market participants have to “hic et nunc” accept the topic and come to a common solution.
And "solution" is not meant here in the sense of a detailed and individual problem solution:
It's about developing the vision of a digital, blockchain-based art market that will also endure in the context of platforms and the metaverse.
This vision is now being developed - the question is who will actively shape this process and who will only be the co-driver.
Other industries have shown in the past how to completely oversleep this process and then to live with the facts that large platforms have set.
Will the art market be smarter?
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