[kybernetikos]

I'm absolutely aware that there are other possible solutions, although I doubt any of them are as practical as a smart contract blockchain solution.

Given that you seem to think that it's not that hard, I wonder if we have a different understanding of the requirements here.

We're trying to make the payment process more transparent and verifiable as a way of increasing trust. You say that we can do that with a database that allows some open access. I don't really see how.

For example - who runs that database? If it's the company that offers the insurance, it's a nonstarter - it doesn't help with trust. If it's some third party, then it's precisely as useful as the trust the customer has in that third-party. Such an approach could work, but in my opinion brings with it more difficulties than a blockchain solution in most cases.

Even if we do find someone trusted to run the 'database with some open access', there's still the question of being confident that payments are made according to the data in the database, and that the data in the database is updated according to the appropriate rules.

[newswasboring]

> If it's the company that offers the insurance, it's a nonstarter - it doesn't help with trust. If it's some third party, then it's precisely as useful as the trust the customer has in that third-party.

Don't oracles have the same issue?

[kybernetikos]

> Don't oracles have the same issue?

Great point. And yes, there's a trust issue around oracles. I do think that these are dramatically less problematic than some of the other options though.

An organisation that publishes flight data and charges for it, is incentivised to produce accurate, timely data about flights.

If instead we have an insurance organisation keeping a database storing information about claims, its incentives are much more muddy.

I think this is another example of how trust isn't just a full on / full off thing, but that you can make meaningful improvements in trust that can have useful economic consequences even without solving it perfectly.

[newswasboring]

> An organisation that publishes flight data and charges for it, is incentivised to produce accurate, timely data about flights.

Depends on who pays, right? If their only consumers are insurance companies, they are incentivized to keep data in a way which is favorable to insurance companies (there are lies, big lies and statistics kind of deal). I believe this is what lead to the sub prime mortgage crisis.

[kordlessagain]

> there's a trust issue around oracles

I remember asking someone about this in the early days at the Bitcoin meetup in SF. This was when Ethereum was an idea, not a reality.

I pondered, "Will Ethereum have a way to query the Web in a transaction?". I never got a straight answer from anyone about how that would work well. Later, I discovered that Bitcoin script doesn't have loops, but is still somehow "Turing Complete" according to the inventor, who may or may not be the inventor.

My take then and my take now is that cryptocurrencies have some value for transitory things and imaginary value for more permanent things.