Unlike what else? I don't think you are saying anything.
The main property of a blockchain is that the data is copied over and over to lots of places owned by many different entities. However, the "magic" already fades when it comes to the important part of the technology, deciding what version is authoritative made even harder by lots of otherwise unconnected people having to agree. The algorithms used for this indeed are "magical" and not easy to understand in real life (incl. various attack scenarios; even if such an algorithm itself appears to be simple on its own the complexity arising of running it in the distributed system is not), not to mention the resource use (of both storing the same data many times over and of consensus algorithms, even the ones without "proof of work" requirement).
Of course, this second part is necessary because of the first part, because you now have lots and lots of copies you now have the problem of having to make the decision. That adds a lot of unforeseeable consequences because making that decision - and in breadth, in a distributed system - is a hard problem. You trade one issue that you have with a single place with a lot of fuzzy and hard to foresee issues in a complex system. It seems to me to many people "blockchain" simply is attractive because it is harder to understand and has "magical" properties, just like writing notes on paper automatically appears to be "so last millennium" compared to storing digital notes even if for a given situation it would do the job just as well (and require only low-tech hardware and no electrical power).
Also reminds me of "Why did you climb that mountain?" - "Because it was there" to some degree. I mean, it's not bad that there seems to be an ingrained attitude to favor new shiny things in parts of humanity, that's probably good as a progress-driving factor for all things where outcomes cannot be predicted, so that they are attempted to be used anyway (similar to some "errors" that seems like waste of resources in some biological systems where inefficient pathways are nevertheless left open a bit, inefficient at the moment but enabling better reactions to changes). So I don't mind all the blockchain (and other) hype(s) too much, but let's keep it in check a bit, let there be experiments but let's not go overboard.
The main property of a blockchain is that the data is copied over and over to lots of places owned by many different entities. However, the "magic" already fades when it comes to the important part of the technology, deciding what version is authoritative made even harder by lots of otherwise unconnected people having to agree. The algorithms used for this indeed are "magical" and not easy to understand in real life (incl. various attack scenarios; even if such an algorithm itself appears to be simple on its own the complexity arising of running it in the distributed system is not), not to mention the resource use (of both storing the same data many times over and of consensus algorithms, even the ones without "proof of work" requirement).
Of course, this second part is necessary because of the first part, because you now have lots and lots of copies you now have the problem of having to make the decision. That adds a lot of unforeseeable consequences because making that decision - and in breadth, in a distributed system - is a hard problem. You trade one issue that you have with a single place with a lot of fuzzy and hard to foresee issues in a complex system. It seems to me to many people "blockchain" simply is attractive because it is harder to understand and has "magical" properties, just like writing notes on paper automatically appears to be "so last millennium" compared to storing digital notes even if for a given situation it would do the job just as well (and require only low-tech hardware and no electrical power).
Also reminds me of "Why did you climb that mountain?" - "Because it was there" to some degree. I mean, it's not bad that there seems to be an ingrained attitude to favor new shiny things in parts of humanity, that's probably good as a progress-driving factor for all things where outcomes cannot be predicted, so that they are attempted to be used anyway (similar to some "errors" that seems like waste of resources in some biological systems where inefficient pathways are nevertheless left open a bit, inefficient at the moment but enabling better reactions to changes). So I don't mind all the blockchain (and other) hype(s) too much, but let's keep it in check a bit, let there be experiments but let's not go overboard.