I'll bite, I have use cases alone these lines. I don't use SQL in new projects.
When iterating on new systems, especially one with live users. I can keep users at different document schemas. If I'm careful I can make it so that all document schema changes don't break old ones yet also allow for new functionality not requiring mass migrations of documents.
CouchDB allows the db to just be exposed to the world directly. Projects where it's reasonable (user owned/controlled data particularly), I can stand up the system with 97% front end code 3% backend. Having the near entirety of your application stack in one place means you can use smaller more specialized teams and your overall areas of concerns are smaller without needing to draw up a formal spec for your data transport.
The whole GraphQL vs REST debate is meaningless when you don't even have to think about your transport stack between the server and the browser. There are other perks to this model such as providing a fully functional website/webapp even while offline. It's trivial to switch between a couchdb backend and local pouchdb copy of your db. Potentially lower bandwidth use while just transferring updated docs instead of consistent queries or asset fetching where the same data moves across the wire over multiple uses (not a win for single visits to a single page style sites). Keeping multiple clients on the same document set in sync without socket.io work.
When iterating on new systems, especially one with live users. I can keep users at different document schemas. If I'm careful I can make it so that all document schema changes don't break old ones yet also allow for new functionality not requiring mass migrations of documents.
CouchDB allows the db to just be exposed to the world directly. Projects where it's reasonable (user owned/controlled data particularly), I can stand up the system with 97% front end code 3% backend. Having the near entirety of your application stack in one place means you can use smaller more specialized teams and your overall areas of concerns are smaller without needing to draw up a formal spec for your data transport.
The whole GraphQL vs REST debate is meaningless when you don't even have to think about your transport stack between the server and the browser. There are other perks to this model such as providing a fully functional website/webapp even while offline. It's trivial to switch between a couchdb backend and local pouchdb copy of your db. Potentially lower bandwidth use while just transferring updated docs instead of consistent queries or asset fetching where the same data moves across the wire over multiple uses (not a win for single visits to a single page style sites). Keeping multiple clients on the same document set in sync without socket.io work.