From the article:
Can a blockchain find people offering rides, link them up with people who are trying to go somewhere, and give the two parties a transparent platform for payment? Can a blockchain act as a repository and a replay platform for TV shows, movies, and other digital media while keeping track of royalties and paying content creators? Can a blockchain check the status of airline flights and pay travelers a previously agreed upon amount if their planes don’t take off on time?
If so, then blockchain technology could get rid of Uber, Netflix, and every flight-insurance provider on the market.
Really? All these applications can also be built using 'normal' systems architectures. If you build them on a blockchain, then you also get:
- A very low rate of transactions
- A very high computational cost to mine new blocks
- A very high storage cost for each node
- No way to reverse transactions in the case of error or fraud
So somehow the benefit of putting these applications on the blockchain has to outweigh these costs. The only benefit I can see is transparency. When you have information that must be publicly available and immune to tampering, then a blockchain could be a nice way to achieve that.
But for these examples? I don't see any reason to use Ethereum or a blockchain at all to implement them. Can someone help me out here?
Can a blockchain find people offering rides, link them up with people who are trying to go somewhere, and give the two parties a transparent platform for payment? Can a blockchain act as a repository and a replay platform for TV shows, movies, and other digital media while keeping track of royalties and paying content creators? Can a blockchain check the status of airline flights and pay travelers a previously agreed upon amount if their planes don’t take off on time?
If so, then blockchain technology could get rid of Uber, Netflix, and every flight-insurance provider on the market.
Really? All these applications can also be built using 'normal' systems architectures. If you build them on a blockchain, then you also get:
So somehow the benefit of putting these applications on the blockchain has to outweigh these costs. The only benefit I can see is transparency. When you have information that must be publicly available and immune to tampering, then a blockchain could be a nice way to achieve that.But for these examples? I don't see any reason to use Ethereum or a blockchain at all to implement them. Can someone help me out here?