NFT Event Tickets
I write a lot about the principle of accessible dApps, but rarely get into specific examples. So, let's do that.
NFTs are just transferrable data. In the same way you can send money (cryptocurrency or "fungible tokens") to someone, you can send art, music, or pretty much any other kind of document as a non-fungible token (NFT) on blockchain.
One possible application for NFTs is event tickets. If you want to go to a baseball game, broadway show, or Taylor Swift concert, you need to buy a ticket. That ticket used to be paper, but now most events use Ticketmaster or a similar online service.
The service takes a large cut of each sale. This is to offset the investment they made in an app that prevents forgery/fraud and allows you to transfer/re-sell your tickets if you decide not to go. Obviously there are a lot of other features than just those, but those do come for free with blockchain.
If you wanted to use blockchain for event ticketing today, you could. You'd need to set up a simple website that sold the NFTs and then check for proof of NFT ownership at the door.
But the challenges for attendees would be:
- setting up wallets to hold the NFTs
- paying (possibly very high) gas fees on top of the event ticket price
- developing even a basic understanding of what's going on with this NFT thing
In order for an event ticketing dApp to attract venues to use blockchain, these need to be solved. Attendees need to be able to pay with a credit card as usual. The gas fees need to be eliminated at best, but hidden at the very least. And your website needs to explain the bare minimum in as simple a way as possible right when the user needs to know.
A dApp that nails these three things can replace Ticketmaster because it won't need to take a large cut from the venue's profits to cover its costs.
-Luke
P.S. If you want my take on what accessible dApps would look like for other applications, feel free to hit reply and ask.