Blockchains: How They Work and Why They’ll Change the World
From the article:<p><i>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?<p>If so, then blockchain technology could get rid of Uber, Netflix, and every flight-insurance provider on the market.</i><p>Really?  All these applications can also be built using &#x27;normal&#x27; systems architectures. If you build them on a blockchain, then you also get:<p><pre><code>   - 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
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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.<p>But for these examples?  I don&#x27;t see any reason to use Ethereum or a blockchain at all to implement them. Can someone help me out here?