Odell is wrong, because ordinal theory is nothing more than a convention in how to look at things. It is an agreement. CR thought of a clever way to enumerate sats, and insofar as we agree to look at things in the way he describes, we can trade them around in a non-fungible manner. If someone decided they didn't want to look at things the way CR described, they are free not to, but their non-belief needn't affect anyone else's belief. They can't stop anyone from adopting the convention that CR invented and acting on it.

The thing that amuses the shit out of me is that this is nothing more, or less, than what btc itself is: a way to look at things. If a person sitting across from you thinks btc is worthless, how can you possibly disagree? What would your vectors of disagreement be? The only rebuttal you can make about the value of this abstraction is that other people do value it, as demonstrated by your ability to trade it for tangible goods or other currencies. But its value lies exclusively in this shared convention.

When I used to listen to bitcoin podcasts regularly, a bunch of bitcoiners went on a kick of trying to rebrand the "money is a shared delusion" bon motte. Even the great Lyn Alden is guilty of this sophistry. I get why they're doing it -- they're trying to rebut the idea that btc is meaningless. But denying reality is the wrong way. Money, like a lot of other important things, has meaning insofar as it is a matter of convention. Different technologies introduce different affordances to this convention, but a convention it remains. So with ordinals.

Even if the protocol changes (which it has reasons not to, just like Bitcoin does), the old protocol will still exist. And being the first such protocol, it may become the Schelling point for storing images on Bitcoin.