From my experience, the core driver behind the data mesh architecture is organisational, not technological. Organisations are requiring more of data, be it for rapid product development, or self-service analytics. Often this involves large numbers of sources (e.g. external sources), rather than just larger volumes of the same thing.

If marketing, finance and sales is dependent on a centralised data team for every new thing, the data team quickly becomes the bottleneck, stifling innovation and frustrating teams. Incorporating the principles of a Data Mesh enables those teams to manage their own data, according to well defined governance standards that enable interoperability.

The reality is that different teams are already managing their own data (via excel spreadsheets, web-apps, etc). If we can apply a bit more rigor to how these datasets are managed (e.g. so they can be shared, integrated, secured, etc), then the whole organisation benefits.