Is it better Ethereum or Tezos for NFTs?

I’ve already written here what being an early adopter means.

So in the context of this post, you’re one of them. You’re aware of the fact that you’re dealing with new technologies and also you’re aware of all the scenarios, opportunities, and consequences that this kind of “lifestyle” implies.

With these considerations in mind (coming from my previous blog post), I’m writing these thoughts here, after reading tweets and tweets around the debate “is it better Ethereum or Tezos for NFTs?”

Now, just for a second, imagine yourself as the first person who was going to buy a video recorder in the good old days. Imagine that you’re at a local shop in your hometown and you have to choose between a Betamax or a VHS. In that hypothetical scenario, the market around home video is not mature enough, it is still evolving and you can only trust your feelings to make your purchase: so it is basically a gut-driven choice, not a ponderated one. You can try to read weak signals in a background of noise trying to picture how the future will look like, asking the clerk or asking your friends, but be aware that only a fraction of humans are capable to do this (and only by luck in a non-repeatable way). So going with your guts means basically two things: you will be the guy/girl that will trash his/her own Betamax soon - after wasting money, trust, and time on a failed technology - or you will be lucky enough to get at home a brand new VHS video recorder and use it for a long time to come.

When I bought my first Windows Phone with its own beautiful Metro UX system I was the unlucky guy betting on the wrong technology even if it had a LOT of potentials. At the same time, I’m sure that there were many early adopters that never regretted buying a Sega Saturn despite its cruel defeat against the Playstation one. On my side, even if I was a VHS boy and a Playstation owner since the very beginning, I can remember many other disappointing moments around technology during my life. For example, I got very upset after buying a Pebble Watch to suddenly discovered that the company was sold to Fitbit, because on their side, Fitbit completely destroyed the concept of the watch (thing that made me even more upset (but nobody will remember Fitbit for being clever about business and product decisions). Another anecdote about disappointing technology can also be the one in which I baked my first-generation xbox360 in order to fix the red ring of death.

However, nowadays the market has changed a lot and I believe that when many technologies are well established around a common problem to solve, they can coexist and coevolve in the same ecosystem. This is the case of Android and iOS, Playstation, Xbox, and Nintendo. The market is the same and these big players here are addressing different users’ needs (that’s why the console and phone wars don’t have much sense for me). The same applies - in a certain way - to the Ethereum and Tezos debate. They’re trying to address different problems for different needs. What really disrupts technology and human progress is being eaten by the apex predator: the fact that most of humanity relies on a single search engine, a single messaging app, and a single marketplace (Google, Facebook, Amazon) underline a problem of resilience in those markets. But luckily I don’t see this happening for blockchain technologies, where we’re moving into a direction of integration (see Rarible with Tezos) rather than fragmentation and competition before getting acquired by the apex predator.

During the centuries technology moved from “any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it's black” to a high degree of customization. In other words, we’re bringing back into services and techs the same amount of craftsmanship it was required before the industrial revolution. We’re not targeting users segments or archetypes of consumers anymore, we’re targeting single users (using AI, big data you name it). The same I think is happening in the NFT community: Tezos is giving chances to earn some money, get known, and reach a bigger audience to small artists. Also, small artists can support other small artists and small collectors can be collectors anyway even if playing low-stakes. At the same time, Ethereum is addressing different users’ needs and is opening different kinds of possibilities.

So in brief, go with your guts and don’t preclude yourself possibilities, choosing in this early adoption phase between technology or another. Especially if the cost of affording your Betamax (or VHS) video recorder is very very cheap.

Opening image by Jeremy Bezanger.