By: chorne (founder of Filta)

Short Answer: NFTs make it easier to create the type of application that we want to create and is better for art+artists in the long run.

When Filta was just myself and a crazy idea - NFTs weren’t part of the plan. In 2018 I had built an AR NFT art gallery app, failed to get any users, and shut it down by 2019. That (humbling) experience made me believe that NFTs weren’t going to take off for another 5-10 years. I wanted nothing to do with them.

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Credit: TheReportOfTheWeek & @mayorofkenya

However - it made me think very differently when designing the core features of Filta:

  1. Interoperable - Easily bring your Filtas into other applications and use them. I wanted to fix the problem of face filters being available only in one app and built on a closed platform.
  2. Composable - Easily combine Filtas with other assets. You should be able to combine your favorite digital hat with your favorite digital earrings - even if they are created by different designers on different platforms. It makes ZERO SENSE that filters today can’t be combined.
  3. Scarce - Each Filta is a limited-edition (even if the edition size is 10 billion). Nobody likes running into someone wearing the exact same outfit - it tears away at your sense of unique identity. Scarcity is the only way to ensure that your visual identity remains yours.
  4. Ownable - To use a Filta, you have to own it. Ownership is a required feature to enable scarcity.
  5. Resellable - You can re-sell your Filta to other people on the internet. This allows creators to make filters go viral and see the financial upside. I always hated that memes get ripped off with no attribution to the creator. This was my way of fixing that issue.

This list happens to be a list of things that NFTs are SPECIFICALLY great at. Doing something simliar with traditional technology is **possible but requires more time and effort to do.

Traditional technology also has a major downside: if a business shuts down.....the services they provide are also lost forever. For Filta to be an artist-first platform - this never sat well with me. I wanted to promise artists that their work would still be accessible even if Filta were to shut down (whether its 2 or 2000 years from now).