"Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Relational DBs & SQL aren't perfect, but they'

"Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Relational DBs & SQL aren't perfect, but they've proven better than 30 years of attempts to replace them. I think the burden is (rightly) on you to explain why your alternative is better. There are applications where other approaches are appropriate (e.g. web search); if you can't explain why something is better solved using a non-relational system, then perhaps it isn't.