>Sometimes it looks like people throw blockchain in a project not on technical merits but because they think the buzzword is a VC magnet.

That's because they do. A Blockchain without decentralization (and therefore no need for proof-of-work consensus) is functionally just an immutable, append-only object database - the same sort of data structure that any modern, distributed source code version control system (like Git) has always used, before "Blockchain" was even a thing.

Well it has a few advantages like allowing trusted partners easier secure access, Maersk might not be the only party with deciding nodes, they just won’t trust you or me to run one. It also offers an easy way of offering global access through public nodes.

While your VC answer is probably the case more often than not, here is one technical answer to your question:

Instead of "proof of stake" as the consensus model, you could build a "consortium blockchain" where other parties (ie your big customers) get to validate the blocks themselves in addition to your servers. "Proof of authority" or "delegated proof of stake" are consensus models for this approach. This would be helpful if you want the data to be private but you want to increase trust within your platform.

My only guess is that they save on human auditing of some kind that is a legal requirement of the industry (and communication/scheduling overheads of that auditing). Maersk operates across many different countries/languages and probably has different levels of technology in each of those countries that makes auditing difficult.

Efficiency isn’t the purpose, safety and anti corruption is.

You’d need to hack the majority of the nodes to alter the data which isn’t going to happen unless a government wants to steal a container.

It doesn’t matter that it’s expensive either. It currently costs more to transfer the claims papers than it costs to ship the actual container, so the cost-benefit is easily obtainable.

Does it need to be slow and shitty? Couldn’t “blockchain technology” in the context just refer to it being an immutable log? If the nodes are controlled by one entity there is no point in doing proof-of-work for consensus for example.

IMO there is a difference between “blockchain” and “blockchain technology”. The latter means taking parts of or inspiration from how blockchains are built.

Even if the technology is not be specific to the blockchain originally, blockchain still helped bring these ideas into the minds of the masses and so I think it is fair to characterize some of these things as “blockchain technology” when that is how some people came to know of them.

Not only is your argumentation and example really not solid -- the steamboat technology would in this case cover the steam engine, used in a large range of other sectors to solve the same and other problems. As such, you would not use the steam engine technology in anyway in the "derived invention".

If we go back to your original claim, you appear to be implying that a blockchain, to begin with, is a good solution of a immutable log -- it is not.

Depending on the scenario, there are in ALL cases that I have encountered at least, a better alternative solution, which is more efficient, already well researched, developed and tested. If you recon that you know an example where this is not the case, I would love to hear about it.

At the same time, you really do see people and companies who every single day, do use the blockchain as an excuse for a little extra gains in their stock valuation, like Maersk (the same Maersk who cannot even figure out how to divide their network into virtual lans, or have som network level malware protection).