Ok, please could you list some tangible, practical and cost effective use cases for blockchain that are not better solved with other technologies?
* If I resell my phone, transfering the remaining guarantee and/or insurance should be nothing else then a transaction. On the blockchain that's 10x more efficient than the status quo.
* If an artist sells his art the first time for $10, and the person resells it for 10000$, then the artist should be compensated too. Royalty mechanisms can solve for that and avoid secondary markets or at least create a more beneficial secondary.
There are an endless amount of examples which will make a lot of things more efficient, transparent and enforce standardization on a global level. Long way to go, but absolutely worth it.
* insurances: you still need somebody outside the smart contract that needs to connect it to what happens. You've just moved the trust from one place to another, and you're not better off.
* transferring money is faster in many countries than it is with (e.g.) BTC when you include the wait for the confirmation blocks. It's also bound to become faster and cheaper, while many blockchains (especially BTC) seem stuck with their processing time. Even countries with slow bank transfers now tend to have a fast solution, like Zelle in the US. Add problems like volatility of the cryptocurrency with the respect to the currency that actually matters, high (and volatile) fees, and transfers via cryptocurrencies is only attractive in a few countries and will only remain so as long as these countries do not improve.
* with art you again have the same boundary problem: the blockchain you use doesn't know what's happening, and only the law will resolve your conflicts.
> efficient, transparent and enforce standardization
So far the blockchain systems have been less efficient than non-blockchain ones they purported to replace, see the usual comparison with the Visa network for example.
Transparency and standardization are orthogonal to the use of a blockchain: using one doesn't mean you can't be opaque or follow any standard.
Standardization also plays a huge role, and yes, in many ways, it's a technological chicken-and-egg problem whereby systems have to work with each other and the chain in a way that makes intermediaries as obsolete as possible.
The transfer speed of money or the general transaction speed - well, that's something that is being solved as we speak. These systems (e.g. Ethereum) have to mature, and many ways are being explored, using known principles like separation of concerns, e.g., separating settlement, execution, and data layers - but in a decentralized manner.
The public and many entrepreneurs need to understand how early this tech is and rush use cases that don't add value as of now. You must go deep and understand that this has to grow from the bottom up.
No, these are fundamental problems that time can't solve. Businesses aren't built around this technology because it's not advantageous to use it in a legally compliant environment.
Companies in this field keep adding new layers of abstraction pretending they're solving a problem; they're just moving it to somewhere else, but the fundamentals remain the same. Basically running in circle.
We're not running in circles.
> Businesses aren't built around this technology because it's not advantageous to use it in a legally compliant environment.
This is just one of the reasons. The technology is also not scalable and abstracted enough yet. No one is pretending anything here.
idk, take your phone thing as an example. Blockchain doesn't solve anything, because nothing stops me from reselling the phone without transferring the insurance, or transferring the insurance and keeping the phone. The whole problem is that it's not linked to the phone itself.
instead of going on about benefits, what is an industry that currently suffers from an actual problem that a blockchain could solve? because right now I'm not aware of any problems in society where blockchain is the solution
All blockchain proves is that you have access to someone's insurance key. While it would be a bit more difficult or costly than faking a card, it's not impossible. And most places I've been to don't even care about the card or the insurance number, they just ask for my regular ID and insurance provider to verify with.
> resell my phone
Two things: 1) The status quo could be that the new owner has the serial number of the phone. The fact that it isn't this simple (if it really isn't this simple) is because the seller doesn't want to make it that simple. 2) Insurance is particular to a person and their activities. For things such as aftermarket phone insurance the price you pay for the insurance will be based in part on your individual risks. This is obviously not transferable.
> Art
Royalty mechanisms aren't controlled by the artist, and can be, and have been, eliminated by marketplaces. https://www.forbes.com/sites/leeorshimron/2022/10/24/nft-cre...
It's very early, as I stated in another answer on the same comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=philippz#34479955
Not all of them, of course. It's not a wonder child that aims to solve all of humanity's problems. It'll bring humanity closer, though and make it more efficient in many ways. People always try to look so narrow at it.
There are plenty of use cases and attributes (permissionlessness, immutability, zero-trust sources, etc.), and of course, not always all of these count all the time or are even desired. But it allows us to have and apply those as needed in an interoperable way.
This is far from axiomatic[1].
Also, presumably you can move up a level of abstraction and sell the identity that bought the artwork for $10000. The blockchain doesn't need to know that the keys have changed hands.