Just now I came across an NFT big shot berating the secondary market, saying that royalties are almost zero. Honestly, it really struck a chord. This “creator economy” thing sounds wonderful in theory, but once the on-chain contracts are hard-coded, royalties become “optional.” These days, many new projects simply default to not offering royalties at all. When buyers see low slippage and low fees, who’s going to care about creators’ long-term interests? Put plainly, this is just a game: are you willing to pay a few extra percentage points for “culture,” or do you want to bolt as soon as possible?

Old-timers advise newcomers not to take the last seat, but I actually think the essence of the royalties controversy is just like Meme hype—both are driven by attention. When attention is there, royalties can be treated like faith; once attention fades, who cares whether your contract has kept revenue-sharing in it? Anyway, I’m used to dodging sandwiches—so when I see projects with “optional royalties,” I become even more wary. If even creators don’t want to be tied to the project long-term, then it’s likely just a short-term attention/traffic play. For my part, I’m now more inclined to look at contracts with hard routing optimization and slippage protection—at least that can help ensure you’re not executed on like someone getting harvested. That’s it for now—I’ll keep researching.