A couple decades ago this guy was dating a close friend of mine, and I was a major asshole towards him, for reasons that probably made more sense at the time. Dude was quite talented, honestly.
a lot of people in America especially have the idea that working should be suffering and hate anyone that can make a living not wanting to kill themselves
Bingo. Untie financial value from art and we wouldn't even be having this discussion. It would simply be another amazing tool that can benefit established artists and inspire amateurs.
I've made thousands of images, and it hasn't led me to mint a single NFT. What it HAS done is re-invigorate a dead idea I had for a game and caused me to over the last few weeks assemble a crew on discord and start working on said game. (Actually, we're doing a few cheesy mobile games first before we tackle the passion project).
It also inspired me to get some paint supplies and try to recreate some of the simpler images i've generated.