Art Does Not Need Utility

Let me say it out loud:

“ART DOES NOT NEED UTILITY, BECAUSE ART IS UTILITY ITSELF”

We live in an age obsessed with usefulness. Everything must justify itself through function. Everything must prove efficiency. Everything must demonstrate measurable output. If something cannot be optimized, monetized, or operationalized, it is quietly dismissed as unnecessary. In such a world, the questions sound reasonable:

“What’s the use of this painting?”
“What’s the utility of this Ordinals, or NFT?”
“Why collect something that can’t be used?”

At first glance, these questions appear rational. They seem practical, disciplined, even intelligent. But beneath their surface lies a fundamental error. They apply the logic of instruments to something that was never meant to be an instrument.

This is a category mistake.

Asking for the “utility” of art is like standing before Guernica and seriously asking: “Can this pay for my coffee?” Or staring at Starry Night and demanding: “What practical problem does this solve?”

The absurdity is obvious. Not because the paintings lack value, but because the question itself is misplaced. Art was never designed to function like a tool. In economics and technology, utility refers to measurable usefulness. A knife has utility because it cuts. Software has utility because it performs tasks. A financial protocol has utility because it enables transactions.

This is instrumental utility.

But art does not operate in the instrumental domain. Art does not ask:

“What can I do for you?”

Art asks:

“What can you feel?”

Art possesses intrinsic value. It is valuable not because of what it does, but because of what it represents, evokes, and preserves. It generates aesthetic experience. It awakens emotional resonance. It provokes existential reflection. It constructs symbolic identity. It captures the spirit of an era.

When someone stands in front of a painting and feels something shift inside them, not financially, not functionally, but existentially, that is art working exactly as intended. Art is not a tool. Art is a mirror. Imagine walking through a museum. On the wall hangs a large abstract canvas. At first, it appears chaotic — colors, strokes, fragments. You look for a minute. Then another. Gradually something stirs within you. A memory surfaces. A thought forms. A feeling intensifies.

Then someone beside you asks:

“What’s the use of this?”

The question feels strange. Almost inappropriate. Because art does not exist to be used. It exists to be experienced. It does not justify itself through function. Its presence is its justification.

The same misunderstanding appears in the digital realm. From cave paintings to oil canvases, from canvases to blockchain, the medium evolves, but the human impulse remains constant.

Prehistoric humans painted on stone walls without roadmaps. Ancient civilizations sculpted statues without tokenomics. Today, artists inscribe or minted any kind of art, from abstract to pixels, from glitch to poem onto blockchain.

Ordinals. NFTs. Or any digital arts/collectibles. They are not productivity applications. They are digital artifacts, digital arts, or whatever. To ask for their “utility” is no different from asking what practical function the Mona Lisa performs. Paintings do not brew coffee. Poems do not store data. Music does not run DeFi protocols. Yet we value them. Why. Because art operates in the dimension of meaning.

Often, the demand for utility is not driven by rationality, but by fear. Fear of making the wrong decision. Fear of being perceived as foolish. Fear of being unable to explain one’s taste. So the safe question emerges:

So the safe question emerges:

“What’s the utility?”

When the honest answer could simply be:

“I like it.”

And that is enough. Taste does not require defense. Emotion does not require justification.

But the argument goes deeper. Art may not possess instrumental utility, but it generates something profoundly powerful:

CULTURE.

A strong artwork does not remain a private experience. It becomes a shared symbol. It forms collective language. It shapes identity. It builds community. And when that happens, art transforms into culture. Culture is not abstract. It is structurally powerful. Culture creates networks. Culture generates loyalty. Culture builds tribes. Culture drives demand. Culture influences markets. Culture shapes economic systems. An artwork may begin as individual expression. But once it becomes a symbol of an era, a movement, or a digital identity, it enters the cultural layer of civilization. And culture has very real utility.

Utility in the form of:

• Network effects
• Community cohesion
• Social status
• Historical legitimacy
• Economic value

Market value is not the cause of culture. It is the consequence of culture. Many assume valuation emerges from technical functionality. In reality, valuation often emerges from narrative, identity, scarcity, history, and symbolic power. Without culture, there is no premium. Without shared meaning, an object remains just an object. But when something becomes a cultural symbol, it transcends its material form.

The logical chain is clear:

Art creates meaning. Meaning creates culture. Culture generates demand. Demand produces valuation.

Therefore, art does not require instrumental utility to justify itself. It already functions at a deeper level -as the foundation of culture-. And culture carries concrete social and economic consequences.

When someone collects art, whether physical or digital, they are not simply acquiring an object. They are acquiring participation in meaning. They are aligning themselves with a narrative. They are positioning themselves within a cultural moment. Even pixelated characters that appear “simple” or “absurd” may represent satire, resistance to corporate aesthetics, or declarations of digital autonomy.

Humans do not live by function alone.

What is the utility of laughter? What is the function of falling in love? What measurable output does a sunset provide?

None.

Yet without them, life would feel hollow.

A world reduced entirely to efficiency becomes sterile. A civilization governed only by spreadsheets becomes colorless. If every creation must justify itself through use-case metrics, we risk constructing an aesthetic prison, one in which imagination must wear a corporate suit to survive.

Art resists that reduction. Art reminds us that we are not merely productive beings. We are symbolic beings. We create meaning. We build culture. We live through narratives.

When someone asks: “What’s the utility?” the answer does not need to be defensive.

Art does not need utility as a tool, because art is utility at its deepest level. Not instrumental utility. Not transactional utility. But existential utility. It sustains identity. It preserves memory. It builds culture. It anchors meaning in time.

Art is not about what you can do with it. It is about what it awakens within you. and what it constructs within civilization. And when something shapes collective identity, forms enduring culture, and carries value across generations, it has already achieved the highest form of utility.

Not the kind that can be measured. But the kind that keeps us human.

The Blind Box, Gacha, and Collectibles Argument: Why Nobody Asks About Utility

One of the strongest counterarguments to the obsession with utility can be found in a place most people overlook: the world of collectibles.

Consider blind boxes, gacha vending machines, trading cards, action figures, limited-edition toys, comic books, stamps, coins, sneakers, luxury watches, and countless other collectible markets that have existed for decades, and in some cases, centuries.

Now ask yourself a simple question: 

How often do collectors ask, “What’s the utility?”

Almost never.

When someone stands in front of a gacha vending machine in Japan, they do not ask: 

“What practical function does this toy provide?”

When someone purchases a blind box, they do not ask: 

“Will this improve my productivity?”

When someone spends thousands of dollars on a rare trading card, they do not ask: 

“What problem does this solve?”

Instead, they ask completely different question

“How rare is it?”
“Can I complete the collection?”
“What character will I get?”
“Does this piece resonate with me?” “How difficult is it to obtain?”

These questions reveal something profound about human nature. Collectors are not primarily seeking utility. They are seeking meaning.

Collecting Is One of Humanity’s Oldest Behaviors

Long before stock markets existed, before corporations existed, before modern economics even emerged, human beings collected things. Ancient civilizations collected artifacts. Kings collected paintings. Scholars collected manuscripts. Travelers collected coins. Families preserved heirlooms. Children collected cards, marbles, stickers, and toys.

Why?

Certainly not because these objects solved practical problems. Most collections throughout human history have had little or no instrumental utility. Yet people treasured them anyway.

The reason is simple:

Collecting is not fundamentally about function. Collecting is about identity. Collecting is about meaning. Collecting is about participating in a story larger than oneself.

The Utility Question Reveals a Modern Bias

The obsession with utility is largely a product of modern technological and economic thinking. We have become so accustomed to evaluating things according to efficiency that we forget entire categories of human experience operate under different rules.

Nobody asks about the utility of a sunset. Nobody asks about the utility of falling in love. Nobody asks about the utility of childhood memories. Nobody asks about the utility of a favorite song.

Yet somehow, when it comes to art and collectibles, people suddenly become accountants. Everything must justify itself. Everything must have a use case. Everything must generate measurable output. This mindset misunderstands the role collectibles have always played in human civilization.

Collectibles are not tools. They are symbols.

The Hidden Utility of Collectibles

Ironically, many people who demand utility from collectibles fail to recognize that collectibles already possess utility. Just not the kind they are looking for. The utility of collectibles is psychological, emotional, social, and cultural.

Consider the experience of opening a blind box. There is anticipation. There is uncertainty. There is excitement. There is surprise. There is joy. These emotions are not accidents. They are the experience itself. The moment of discovery is part of the value. The experience cannot be separated from the collectible.

Similarly, completing a collection provides a sense of achievement. Finding a rare piece creates satisfaction. Owning something scarce creates meaning. Displaying a collection creates identity. Sharing that collection creates community.

All of these are forms of utility. They simply cannot be measured on a spreadsheet.

Scarcity Creates Stories

The most valuable collectibles are rarely the most useful. A rare baseball card is not more useful than a common one. A rare Pokémon card does not perform a practical task unavailable to ordinary cards. A limited-edition toy does not become valuable because it suddenly acquires new functionality.

What changes is not utility. What changes is meaning. Scarcity transforms objects into stories. And stories are among the most valuable things human beings create.

Every rare collectible carries a narrative:

Who created it?
How many exist?
Who owns it?
How difficult was it to acquire?
What moment in history does it represent?

The value emerges from these narratives. Not from functionality.

Culture Is the Ultimate Multiplier

A collectible becomes truly valuable when it transcends the object itself and becomes part of culture. This is where many people misunderstand valuation. They assume value comes from utility. In reality, value often comes from culture. Culture creates attention. Attention creates demand. Demand creates markets. Markets create valuation.

This pattern can be observed everywhere.

Luxury fashion operates this way. Sports memorabilia operates this way. Comic books operate this way. Trading cards operate this way. Art operates this way. Collectibles operate this way.

The object itself is often secondary. The culture surrounding it is what creates lasting value.

A piece of cardboard becomes valuable because it represents a cultural phenomenon. A toy becomes valuable because it becomes a cultural icon. A collectible becomes valuable because people collectively agree that it matters.

Culture transforms objects into symbols. And symbols have always been more powerful than tools.

Ordinals And Any Other Digital Arts/Collectibles Parallel

This is precisely why the utility argument often falls apart when applied to Ordinals and any other digital arts/collectibles.

People frequently ask:

“What’s the utility?”

Yet they rarely ask the same question about collectible toys, trading cards, or blind boxes.

Why?

Because society already understands those categories. People intuitively recognize that collectibles operate according to different rules. The purpose of a collectible is not to perform a task. The purpose of a collectible is to represent something.

Identity. Belonging. History. Taste. Aesthetic preference. Cultural participation.

Ordinals and any other digital arts/collectibles belong to this tradition.

They are not failed software products. They are cultural artifacts. They should not be judged by the standards of productivity tools any more than a painting should be judged by its ability to process transactions.

Collectors Buy Meaning, Not Function

At its core, every collectible market is a marketplace for meaning.

People do not buy collectibles because they need them. People buy collectibles because they want them. And that distinction matters. Need is functional. Want is symbolic. Need belongs to survival. Want belongs to culture. Human civilization is built not only on what we need, but on what we value.

The moment people stop asking:

“What does it do?”

and begin asking:

“What does it mean?”

They begin to understand art. They begin to understand collectibles. They begin to understand culture itself.

In the End

The question is not:

“What is the utility of this collectible?”

The better question is:

“Why do millions of people throughout history continue collecting things that have little practical utility?”

The answer is simple. Because human beings are not machines. We do not live by function alone. We live by stories. We live by symbols. We live by identity. We live by meaning. And collectibles, whether they are paintings, trading cards, blind boxes, Ordinals, NFTs, or artifacts yet to be invented, exist in that realm.

Not the realm of function. But the realm of culture. And culture, more than almost anything else, is what gives value its power, its durability, and its ability to survive across generations.

– NOXtoshi // SKHELL Culture Media