Regardless of what you think of NFTs, you have to recognize that the author's only counterargument against NFTs is that they're bad for the "rest of us" due to externalities that everyone else has to pay.
The "rest of us" don't pay for the electricity use. The ETH miners are paying for it directly. And creators and buyers are paying for it indirectly through ETH usage. It isn't an externality. That's like saying the physical art world shouldn't exist because it uses physical real estate, electricity, and raw materials to be made on -- and the rest of us pay for those things.
Is it a good use of electricity? Maybe, maybe not. That's for people to decide individually, unless we'd want to go down the moral rabbit hole of judging every single use of electricity.
The "rest of us" don't pay for the electricity use. The ETH miners are paying for it directly. And creators and buyers are paying for it indirectly through ETH usage. It isn't an externality. That's like saying the physical art world shouldn't exist because it uses physical real estate, electricity, and raw materials to be made on -- and the rest of us pay for those things.
Is it a good use of electricity? Maybe, maybe not. That's for people to decide individually, unless we'd want to go down the moral rabbit hole of judging every single use of electricity.