[yata69420]

I think you've got it, so I'm not sure why you don't understand the value of NFTs. It's entirely about economics.

In the case of Windows keys, if Microsoft issued them as an NFT, then the only way to get a valid one would be from Microsoft or via secondary market resale.

Obviously, if Microsoft sells the key, the user paid for the key.

If the user resells the key, Microsoft can now also get paid a transfer fee baked into the NFT contract. Plus they have traceability for where every key went.

Now instead of policing secondary gray markets, they capture additional value from resales. The purchaser of the resale is 100% sure it's a valid key, and the sellers with surplus licenses have a marketplace to unload them.

The NFT in this scenario facilitates Microsoft getting paid for this trade without the trouble of setting up a secondary license trading site. As long as the fee to Microsoft on the NFT transfer is less than the 20% or so that the escrow (ebay) takes, it makes good economic sense for all 3 parties.

[dragontamer]

> If the user resells the key, Microsoft can now also get paid a transfer fee baked into the NFT contract.

Not if people just swap NFT accounts and sell their keys+accounts in their entirety.

IE: Microsoft sells LicenseKey to NFT-Account#1234. The owner of NFT-Account#1234 sells the *ENTIRE ACCOUNT* on the secondary market, for a lower price than Microsoft's official price.

What you don't get is that human consumers don't like people locking them down, and people will find extremely easy ways to avoid the "trap" you hoped to put them in. And the reason this happens is economic incentives. You can't beat microeconomics on this one.

[yata69420]

> Not if people just swap NFT accounts and sell their keys+accounts in their entirety.

There's a cost to doing this. Usually as an escrow fee paid to ebay or g2a or wherever you're selling keys. As long as the NFT transfer fee is lower than the escrow cost, I don't see how it wouldn't be cheaper and safer for everyone.

I'm not saying this is a solution to piracy or violating the regionality of the licensing agreement, just that it would allow buyers and sellers to trade; with the original licensor taking the fee instead of ebay, because the NFT cryptography takes the place of the reputation+escrow provided by existing platforms.