How much merit is there to the NFT frenzy?

I was much more favorable to the defi narrative than the NFT narrative. With defi, the value came from the fact that the blockchain was performing desired real world functions of finance better than the traditional system. With NFTs, I mostly see just hot air and hype. What problem in society is NFTs solving? Other than just price speculation, why would anyone spend real money on an NFT?

When people say NFTs are replacing collectibles like beanie babies, I just think they are replacing something useless with something even more useless. Beanie babies were not solving any real world problems and replacing them in the digital arena is not productive.

If there is a future in NFTs, I believe it is not a decentralized system. The value of NFTs inherently comes from trust; trust that out of the billions of different NFTs, the specific NFT you are buying is authentic. And trust is not something that can not be offered in a decentralized system. You need a trusted third party to give a rubber stamp of approval that the person who minted the collectable has the intellectual property rights to do so, and you can't do that without a trusted third party vetting the token issuer. Think of a regulated NYSE, but for NFTs.