Change data capture, though. That is so so useful for tearing bits of the monolith off.
I can say that we've had our troubles with kafka sure. But app teams 100% love working with it instead of having to have familiarity with all the various data sources we have.
Working with all sorts of different data but all of its kafka is much easier than all sorts of data from Many data sources.
I'm seeing too many places using it in some form of RPC style system as part of some "workflow" orchestration magic system with unicorns and ponies for everyone