This is because businesses learned painfully over many years that the relational model is the simplest way for them to store the data relevant to what they do i

This is because businesses learned painfully over many years that the relational model is the simplest way for them to store the data relevant to what they do in a way that is accessible to all of their IT systems that they have or that they might want to build. Relational databases, as they are currently implemented, might be getting long in the tooth now: http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2500 http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2500 However, given the relational model's foundation in set theory and predicate logic, it seems you'd be hard pressed to replace it with something else that can offer the same data integrity guarantees.