First, in the real world, creators stop getting royalties after the item expires and goes into the public domain, and there's a pretty strong view that the time for that is already too long and the beneficiaries of that long period tend to be companies instead of creators. I would say that there is in fact a widespread belief that the heirs of Walt Disney are too wealthy, despite the fact that Walt himself was a creator.
Second, there's no reason to believe this won't lead to the exact sort of mechanisms that plague existing royalties - e.g., a young singer makes a (smart) contract with a recording studio to have the studio count as the "creator" of the work as far as the contract cares, and the singer is just performing work for hire, in exchange for marketing, promotion, initial funding, and connections. A singer who has absolutely no resources but their talent is probably going to say yes to that, because it's better for them in the short term than going it alone, and the odds are against them (not every talented young singer can become famous). But the profits continue to flow to the recording studio for all time.
There's another thing you're missing: First Sale Doctrine. In the world of physical goods, once you've sold a copy of something, you have no rights whatsoever to constrain what people can do with that copy. Authors don't see a dime for used book sales, for example.
Because "the IRS" (not sure which jurisdiction you're in, but here in the US, it's actually the local and state government) is an entity controlled by elections that is obligated to spend its budget in ways decided on by elections, and therefore can reasonably exist forever. The royalties are not for the benefit of the IRS. A state or local government is sort of like an offline DAO, if you're familiar with DAOs. A producer does not live forever, and the producer's heirs get to spend things as they see fit.
Also, in many cases, the local government does not get a royalty on every sale - certain sales, such as to non-profits, do not get taxed.
I'm not talking about literal royalties. If I have an item that I buy new (or used) and it's not a depreciating asset, and I sell it, then I owe income tax or capital gains, don't I? And then when the new owner sells it a few months or years later as is common in the case of collectibles, they have to pay income tax or gains on their sale as well, and this continues for the entire life span of the object.
Oh, I assumed you were talking about sales taxes, which is the most obvious case of a DAO-like organization taking money on every sale, as a percentage of the selling price.
Income taxes and capital gains taxes are on your profit, not on the sale itself, so they're less analogous. If you as a taxable entity don't net make any money, you don't owe any income taxes (more or less); if you as a taxable entity don't make any profit on an asset you bought some time ago, you don't owe any capital gains taxes (more or less). So both of those are much more reasonable than a royalty on every sale - they don't follow the asset around forever, and you only have to pay a percentage of the money you made if you're in fact making money. It seems like, if I buy an NFT at $10000 and then sell it a month later for $9000, some of that $9000 goes to the creator of the NFT and not to me.
"It seems like, if I buy an NFT at $10000 and then sell it a month later for $9000, some of that $9000 goes to the creator of the NFT and not to me."
Yes that's correct. That makes it very appealing for creators like artists. I can see how that might be off putting for you though, but I think over time this will become "priced in". Also, only ver few creators will have an active aftermarket for their work. Most will not have a single aftermarket sale.
