[dragontamer]

For the industry, I don't think they actually want a decentralized data store... nor do they want anonymity, or any of the stuff typically talked about in BTC or cryptocurrency circles.

I think for most businesses, the real applicable portion of the blockchain was cryptographic signatures to solidify public ledger. That's about it. Kind of simple, but I think that's what people are paying attention to.

In effect, its less about the technology that BTC and/or cryptominers care about... and more about the boring part that seems to get people excited.

A lot of "blockchain" companies seem to be enabling peer-to-peer transactions for example. By centralizing all transactions to a particular server. There's this one company (I forget the name) which claims to be using Blockchain for exchanging Solar-credits between neighbors.

Having a ledger that is cryptographically reliable, even if centralized, is the main benefit. Also, one that can be fully automated is a big deal. I mean, that's all Visa or Mastercard really are: systems that describe when and where transactions have occurred around a centralized source of trust.

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EDIT: And yes, I know what a blockchain is in BTC circles. But I don't think a "Bitcoin Blockchain" is what people are talking about on typical marketing material. Just like "the cloud" has evolved to mean something new... "blockchain" seems to have been picked up by managers and/or venture capitalists to mean something totally different.

[Animats]

The business case for a blockchain is when the alternative is creating some neutral organization to act as an intermediary. Depository Trust Corporation, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers are examples of such intermediaries. Such organizations tend to become centers of power in their own right, and start acting like they own the thing for which they keep records.

[dragontamer]

And so... how does blockchain make money?

Because you just described how a bunch of businesses can make money in a way "Blockchain" cannot. From a financial feasibility perspective, it only demonstrates that a decentralized store of information is going to be innately unprofitable.

[ebcode]

Isn't that the whole point of the Bitcoins themselves? Without that incentive, storing the public, distributed ledger would be a thankless, expensive task. By incorporating the Bitcoin "reward", the miners are incented to maintain the ledger. It certainly appears to be working, looking at the current value of Bitcoin.

[Animats]

The parties that need a common ledger can do it jointly, with mutual mistrust. Think of ten big brokerages maintaining a blockchain for recording bond ownership.

[redy]

This is a common error. The blockchain itself doesn't make money. Just like the internet itself doesn't make money. People build collaboration models on top of the communication protocols and they make money.

(You still need to pay the ISPs of course and eventually the ISPs become too powerful and start demanding bigger and bigger fees and then the whole thing turns to shit. See: Bitcoin, the internet.)