> But then, I wonder, if we're all anyway looking for the trustworthy data ourselves (based on general human intuition), why use blockchain at all? Why not just apply the same level of trust towards, say, a regular database?
You don't have the same level of transparency with a regular database. You can't look into the databases of Google or Facebook or of your bank and see what's going on. You have to trust them to some degree.
From a high level view, any blockchain solution is less efficient than a centralized one. If you don't care about trust and transparency, a centralized solution will always be better.
> It does seem a bit scary though that so much money is going into a system where "you have to find the trustworthy data yourself based on your own social network".
The whole cryptocurrency thing is about reducing trusting third parties. But that adds burden on your part. With Bitcoin's POW you have to do less work for getting to the trust level you are comfortable with because we are pretty certain that no human can change physics. With POS, you need to compensate for the loss of the physical part.
You don't have the same level of transparency with a regular database. You can't look into the databases of Google or Facebook or of your bank and see what's going on. You have to trust them to some degree.
From a high level view, any blockchain solution is less efficient than a centralized one. If you don't care about trust and transparency, a centralized solution will always be better.
> It does seem a bit scary though that so much money is going into a system where "you have to find the trustworthy data yourself based on your own social network".
The whole cryptocurrency thing is about reducing trusting third parties. But that adds burden on your part. With Bitcoin's POW you have to do less work for getting to the trust level you are comfortable with because we are pretty certain that no human can change physics. With POS, you need to compensate for the loss of the physical part.