IBM is quietly brushing its Watson mess under the carpet and now they’re trying to focus on blockchain. However this is just as substanceless and full of marketing fluff as Watson was. There’s nothing being done here that couldn’t or shouldn’t just be handled with a traditional database. Having IBM “run it” also sort of defeats the whole decentralized aspect of blockchain technologies. You don’t need “blockchain” to…
If you have various different, independent actors that operate in a shared environment but with distinct roles, how does traditional DBs help you do anything that isn't already being done today?
For example, sharing data between those actors is still a heavy duty process. Trusting the data coming to you from other actors is still a high risk area, even if they aren't intentionally acting maliciously. Determining actors who have acted in poor faith without trusted and transparent data sources is incredibly difficult as well. How do you overcome these issues and come to the point of a centralized DB either? Who's going to own that central DB and pay for everything going into and out of it?
So in that way, I don't see your point about how a traditional or central DB could solve these issues. I agree with all your other points, and I certainly agree the buzzword charm is heavy as always with this topic, but I don't buy that part.
Happy to hear otherwise. Full transparency, to me, it does seem like DLT has an enterprise value so I'm a bit more of a homer than most.