But you don’t. Everyone can download the picture of ‘your’ ape and use it. You can claim to own the copyright on it due to some blockchain mumbo jumbo and try to sue someone who uses ‘your’ property but do you realistically think you’re going to get very far with that lawsuit?

This is the “right click save” argument.

Sure, you can save a copy of it, but that’s hardly the point.

Anyone can print their own Magic the Gathering trading card or fake bank note. A counterfeiter, ideally, cannot prove their copies are legitimate because of the security measures in those objects.

The blockchain, in this analogy, is closest to those security measures.

Someone who has simply copied the image cannot prove ownership of the token.

An NFT itself cannot be copied, which is the whole advantage over just a PNG/JPEG on a webserver.

I mentioned in an another comment that the copyright sometimes, but not usually, accompanies the NFT. This is a whole other can of worms, and I am not qualified to discuss it beyond that.

No one believes in the value of an NFT except for a small number of delusional tech bro’s, so that NFT has no actual value

If you’re talking specifically about art NFTs, I fully agree with you. They’re as useful as beanie babies.

If you’re talking about crypto as a whole… Coinbase alone has millions of customers, so not exactly a small number. (source via Wikipedia)