Respectfully, I fear the latter. Trying to generate value through specious/arbitrary scarcity, and hoping that demand (willingness to pay) will rise because of that arbitrary constraint on supply. Maybe this is the future, when it seems increasingly easy and cheap to create "things" (t-shirts, widgets, design, prose text, code, music ...), and in large number. The original hope for mechanization/automation is that people's free time and creativity could be devoted to creating new, better, or just more personally satisfying things. I definitely do like the t-shirt as a satirical statement on Bitcoin and NFTs though, if that is what is it. Good luck!
Great comment. I have decided to insure my mint-condition #4 for €185. Even though the shirt is its own receipt, €185 is the replacement cost.
I notice 100 shirt owners like me have taken out the same policy. So, average replacement cost for a tragic dry-cleaning mistake in which all 100 insured shirts are lost is actually €235.
Obviously, any insurance company recognizes me as a sophisticated customer, so they offer me a choice: they could preventatively buy and store shirt #185 today, if I should ever need it, for an extra €10, or add a policy rider to insure the €50 difference between the replacement price and €235, for an extra 5.
