[abdullin]

Monolithic databases (CockroachDB, Spanner etc) don't eliminate abstraction boundaries on the larger scale. They are simply aligned with the database boundary, pushing the burden of crossing them to the application logic. Software will still have to pay the price of crossing the gap with code complexity and performance (object-relational impedance mismatch comes to my mind).

It feels like the building block approach lets you achieve better design and performance for your entire application in the long run. Especially, if you can treat building blocks as blueprints and modify them to fit the task at hand.