If you have a big supply chain, like Amazon does, then managing the complexity of that chain is a tough problem. I happen to agree with IBM that a distributed l

If you have a big supply chain, like Amazon does, then managing the complexity of that chain is a tough problem. I happen to agree with IBM that a distributed ledger like technology can help with that. Not a public one, obviously as that would just be silly, but it would make sense for Amazon to run one. We're doing a variant of this in my field. But it doesn't make any sense to use smart contracts to manage the supply chain complexity of a business that, by definition, doesn't have a complex supply chain i.e. a direct to customer seller. Especially a seller of digital assets. > Expensive digital assets will always require a mediation fee Why? Most mediating supplies an overt service for those fees as well as the mediation. For example, producers at studios, editors at publishers, rights management and marketing/discovery at Netflix etc. Remove the value add and you're left with a commodity. In that scenario you might have very small margin services but, just as likely, would be ad led services for free. I mean, they have useful financial information. There'll be a group that doesn't want that but there's no clear evidence it'll ever be more than niche. So yes, there's value there but I just can't see any reason, for any of the examples you cite, to believe that incumbents will be challenged. If anything it may help entrenchment.