When I used to buy NFTs, I’d naturally take a quick look at the royalties, and it felt quite straightforward to say I was “supporting creators.” But once the secondary market starts arguing, I realize—plain and simple—everyone is just doing the accounting: are royalties something everyone agrees on, or is the platform simply helping you collect a cut? Creators want cash flow, and buyers don’t want to get nicked every time they resell. In any case, no one is really the bad guy; it’s just that the incentives aren’t aligned.

Recently, I’ve been watching the whole narrative around modularization and the DA layer—developers are thrilled, and users look totally lost: what does this have to do with whether I can buy and sell more cheaply and more smoothly? The same goes for royalties; in the end, it boils down to “can I use it, and whether I’m willing to use it.” In the past, it relied on moral pressure, but now it may need to depend on more direct binding of rights (tickets, airdrops, services). Otherwise, even if royalties are written on-chain, it can’t stop people from finding ways to bypass them. Whether you call that idealistic or not, that’s just how the market is.