Why do I feel like etherium is being crammed into all kinds of places where it really isn't necessary, and offers little or no real benefit over conventional so

Why do I feel like etherium is being crammed into all kinds of places where it really isn't necessary, and offers little or no real benefit over conventional solutions? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something here. As an example in addition to this post, our petroleum company recently began a switch to an ETH based block chain for managing/tracking inventory/data samples. I don't understand how hacking smart contracts together on a private ledger is not total overkill for such function.