Precisely this type of thinking resulted in S3, which was the answer to: “what if we drop everything in a traditional file system that is not strictly required”

Precisely this type of thinking resulted in S3, which was the answer to: “what if we drop everything in a traditional file system that is not strictly required”? Several modern database platforms are similarly designed around one or more traditional interface assumptions being dropped. IMHO, the biggest one is “interactive transactions” or alternatively: long-running transactions. Anything external to the database that can interact with it in one transaction requires locks and all of the complexity that comes with it, such as dealing with deadlocks. Dropping the requirement for “interactive Telnet-like SQL shells” can massively simplify things.