These people aren't victims. Are they stupid? Yes. But not victims. Victims are not willing participants. These people were willing.

Any idea what NFTs can be good for? I genuinely can't think of anything that can't be done without being tied to blockChain and crypto nonsense. NFTs are nothing but a transaction record as far as I know, with the possibility to add some instructions for when the ownership of the transaction record changes. Which are most likely in breach of first-sale doctrine...

Anything from property, to ticket systems, to in-game items (dynamic NFTs) in video games, and unique ownership stakes and shares in IPs or works, proof or receipt systems for physical artwork, scanning and tagging tools and systems for authentification of historical artifacts, gems, basically anything. Monkey pictures are bullshit, but the idea in itself is good in many ways. Remember how much dumb shit the internet was used for in the beginning and how useless it all was?

And why can't all those things be done without NFTs / blockChain / crypto currencies?

Everything you listed already exists and works fine the way it's working without putting extra strain on the environment or being tied to a 'currency' purely based on speculation. NFTs are actually a less secure way to authenticate anything as it's nothing but a record with a link to something else. The link can easily be duplicated, forged, ignored. There is nothing even preventing anyone to sell the 'same' NFT multiple times on multiple blockChains. It's just a numbered receipt describing what it's supposed to be tied to.

The only thing NFTs seem to be good for is to sell monkey pictures to the gullible.

How is the idea good? I really don't understand what the benefit could be of storing a transaction receipt on a blockChain. I just don't get it.

How can this lead to anything useful?
https://opensea.io/

What benefit does this have to society?
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer

I don't remember how useless the internet was in the beginning. You had chat rooms IRC, muds, internet oracle, imdb, ascii porn, alta vista, but no international scams afaik. The internet is still pretty darn useless anyway, 90% waste of time if not more lol.

I do love how NFTs prove that money and sense do not go hand-in-hand in general lol

I don't feel sorry for them in the slightest to be honest. Sometimes attributing to destroying the planet isn't profitable.