>In the digital world, everything can be copied. There is no ownership.
Actually I think you've got it backwards. In the physical world, molecules are fungible. I can take one carbon atom out of the Mona Lisa painting, replace it with some different carbon atom, and most people would call it the exact same Mona Lisa. Maybe one day an atom-level reproduction of the Mona Lisa will be possible. The whole point of the Non Fungible in NFTs is that they are mathematically not interchangeable.
I'm getting philosophical now but I'd argue ownership in the physical world is inherently flawed, to the point that "ownership" is a meaningless ideal. You are extremely limited in your ability to affect various forms of matter in the universe. This includes affecting matter in a way that most people would think represents "ownership", for example transporting some good from one location to another location that we'd say puts it in your "possession". Some individual can come rob you. A government can seize your assets. A meteor can annihilate the planet. And there is next to nothing you can do about it.
But you have supreme power to affect the data that is associated with your wallet on a cryptographic ledger (subject to another person/wallet that you are engaging in transactions with), as long as your private key is truly private, and as long as cryptography is mathematically sound. I think that's kind of cool.
This strikes me as a very strange argument. If physical ownership is moot because we don't have ultimate control over physical reality (at least, not to the point of bossing giant meteors around), why does that not also apply to the physical interface to the systems that allow a more "pure" form of ownership?
You have supreme power "as long as your private key is truly private", but that is obviously impossible. At minimum, your key must be known to at least one device that you did not design and don't fully control - the one signing transactions on your behalf.
Let's suppose that you completely eliminate all supply chain issues by building your own hardware wallet from a box of scraps in a cave or something. Congratulations! You have now embedded your "supreme power" in a physical object, and your ability to exercise control depends entirely on the model of physical possession and ownership that you have declared unsound. Hooray?
> why does that not also apply to the physical interface to the systems that allow a more "pure" form of ownership?
Maybe it does. My argument is that the best we can possibly do wrt "ownership" is this mathematical ideal. Maybe a more natural conclusion from this argument is that ownership of any form is moot. The optimistic interpretation of this is that one day we'll end up in some kind of star-trek-esque universe where no one wants for anything. The pessimistic interpretation is that we are all ultimately slaves to the powers that be.
> at least, not to the point of bossing giant meteors around
Completely aside, I realize you are just using my own example here, but this made me chuckle because after I wrote what you are replying to I learned of https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart
Ownership that translates to the physical world is the only thing that matters. In the digital world, everything can be copied. There is no ownership.
Ownership happens only, because in the real world, some authority/court/government (as a proxy for society) acknowledge your ownership.
Now you’re saying that blockchains don’t even try to link the ownership part to the underlying asset. What is it good for then?