While I think you're right in that neither of those seem to be pyramid scheme, I disagree with the implication that they are any better (apologies if that was not the implication).

They seem to just be creating an avenue for monotization of something that, I assume (but I could be wrong here), was previously free by nature, hence the necessity for an NFT to monetize it.

I guess really that's just what NFTs do, or at least their main use case. But I guess I just fundamentaly disagree with that idea.