To me the problem with blockchains is that they don't actually do anything except cause environmental externalities. That seems to be their entire purpose, done

To me the problem with blockchains is that they don't actually do anything except cause environmental externalities. That seems to be their entire purpose, done in the service of keeping the currency deflationary so the early investors continue getting richer off of new participants. I've read countless articles and technical papers about them and, aside from the whole ponzi scheme aspect, I still can't understand why anyone would choose it over any other distributed database that doesn't require transaction fees and a proof-of-something system to keep the system online.