There is a new competitor (called Samsara) in my company's field (GPS tracking for fleet vehicles), and they are taking the IoT approach to the problem.

Big picture: they don't really care about the vehicle itself. What they want to do is put a sensor on that object when it is made, and track all of that object's key metrics throughout its life. From the factory, to shipping, to inside the truck, to installation at the end customer's location, to disposal.

All that data goes up into the cloud, and they do deep and broad analytics on all of it.

It scares me a little bit when a key competitor doesn't even notice me. We track vehicle location and performance. That's just one small part of the whole chain-of-custody that Samsara is tracking. We aren't even a speedbump to them. (And they have $80m of VC money, and no need to make money... only acquire customers, so the VCs can sell the biz and make their 10x on their initial investment.)

Blockchain could be used for this... if everyone in the line of custody has it implemented and integrated systems to handle contract hand-off.

But it is a tough sell. Samsara already gives their hardware away for free, basically as a marketing expense. What they want is that sweet sweet monthly SaaS revenue. $x.xx/month/sensor adds up quick.

For them to convert from the easy-to-sell IoT pitch to Blockchain, they need to sell a lot of really traditional businesses on revamping and modernizing their internal systems. (Trucking, manufacturing, warehousing, etc.)

With IoT, the intermediaries don't give a shit if your box is sending out radio signals into the ether. They just pick up the box, move it to a new location, and put it down again. Simple, easy, and cheap on manpower.

I WANT blockchain to take over. But it's a big lift in many entrenched industries working on small margins, and who are generally adverse to technology-based solutions.