Because separation of the record from the record keeper means the system will be endowed with new attributes such as accuracy, verification. distribution, longevity etc that result in a more robust and valuable system.
Imagine you run a fast food franchise with 10 restaurants, each keeping their inventories in a local database, how do you coordinate global restocking? Manual reconciliation across each database. Ok move to the cloud. Now you have a global picture where state is adjusting in closer to real time and reconciliation is an inherent property of they system rather than a process implementation operationally. Well as I have described elsewhere in this thread. A lot of financial transactions are managed in an equivalent process of local databases with manual reconciliation.
I am oversimplifying because there are a number of road blocks that prevent a solution like “implementing a cloud database” and also conflating what happens within a company (using the franchise analogy) rather than a market (where every single franchise had a common inventory and ordering system not tied to a third party supplier). By my point is that a block chain ledger would solve many of these problems without users even being fully aware of the problem in the first place.
There is no reason you can't mix the cryptological security of the Bitcoin Blockchain without the proof of work part.
If I (a trusted third party) maintained a giant public database that anybody could append to, it would be trivial to release checksums or hash values at specific intervals to prove that nothing in the past was altered.
> If I (a trusted third party) maintained a giant public database that anybody could append to
You're opening yourself up to equivalent of DDoS for databases.
Add extra maintainers for redundancy and economically incentivise people to act in good faith. Congratulations, you now have a proof of stake blockchain.
If someone wants to cheat, they will cheat via blockchain.
If you want to know that the data is correct, you have to test it - for example by making stocktaking, or random spot checks. Otherwise, someone can write on blockchain that they sold 10000 hamburgers, while in reality they sold none.
As for your example of "10 restaurants" - it seems that you have very poor knowledge of ERP systems and concepts like MRP
Companies have been using databases to collect information about their resources since their inception. You have a very naive view when you think that "databases have to be moved to the cloud", when in reality companies have been using own servers that collected data from shops since the 1980s if not earlier.
If you really think that storing data in one database is some new concept, or you think that basic MRP for 10 restaurants is impossible.. then maybe read a bit about supply chain management. Those concepts are not new at all; tons of tools help with that, since last ~30 years, if not more.
Bitcoin is not even useful in this scenario; because if 1 restaurant fat fingers something into blockchain, then this error sits there forever, while in a classic database, someone can usually correct it in an easier way. And people make mistakes all the time.
Imagine you run a fast food franchise with 10 restaurants, each keeping their inventories in a local database, how do you coordinate global restocking? Manual reconciliation across each database. Ok move to the cloud. Now you have a global picture where state is adjusting in closer to real time and reconciliation is an inherent property of they system rather than a process implementation operationally. Well as I have described elsewhere in this thread. A lot of financial transactions are managed in an equivalent process of local databases with manual reconciliation.
I am oversimplifying because there are a number of road blocks that prevent a solution like “implementing a cloud database” and also conflating what happens within a company (using the franchise analogy) rather than a market (where every single franchise had a common inventory and ordering system not tied to a third party supplier). By my point is that a block chain ledger would solve many of these problems without users even being fully aware of the problem in the first place.