Please don’t auto downvote before reading.
A little bit ago some asked a question about why the hate of the blockchain, and that got me thinking if there even was a legitimate use case where the blockchain would be beneficial, but I couldn’t think of one outside maybe some sort of decentralized bank, but before I knew I was thinking it would instantly turn into some crypto scheme and strapped it, because crypto currencies are a scam on every level – and no they aren’t private or secret as some think either.
So I wanted to ask the community. Instead of using the blockchain for crypto, is there a better use where the blockchain could benefit society?
No
Fine, I’ll elaborate a little more.
Blockchain generates typically with huge cost and inefficiency a decentralised ledger of events. If you are going to use a blockchain you need to ask yourself tow questions. 1. Do I need a decentralised ledger/record of events and, 2. Am I willing to put up with the huge increase in costs for creating said ledger.
In my opinion there is nothing that satisfies these two requirements. Blockchains can not remain decentralised for anything that interacts with the physical world as some needs to input the data in the blockchain. This requires you to trust a party destroying any notion of decentralisation (i.e. if an entity can control what goes into a blockchain then it really isn’t decentralised).
Following from this if you are willing to accept and trust a centralised actor to control what enters your blockchain why not trust them to manage your ledger. It would be simpler and easier than using a blockchain.
Finally, as for digital goods that don’t interact with the physical world. Why do you want to introduce a decentralised scarcity? It’s a silly idea. Either you own the intellectual property and you decide who has a license to use your digital goods (in which case you don’t need a blockchain) or you leverage some of the best attributes of the digital world and you leave the good to be freely copied, downloaded and used. A blockchain is just a wasteful unnecessary exercise at that point.
Basically there’s no legitimate use case for blockchain. The best proof of this is just how little real world adoption blockchain technology has in the real world. It’s as old as the iPhone and yet I don’t know a single person who uses it to get things done in their day to day lives. If it had a use we would have found it already.