Of course, the world has not yet seen a blockchain that has been battle-tested, that does not reward the maintainers in a native token. So there's that. What's the incentive?
Unless someone solves this problem in the realm of game theory, it is impossible. This is one of the absolute foundational pillars for the stability of bitcoin the removal of which would create a sort of 2 legged stool.
I'm curious as to how all of this is going to play out in the short-medium term.
Some questions I've been asking myself:
Will there be a mass realization that blockchain without bitcoin is just a slow, shitty database? How long will this realization take?
This is something that really frustrates me. The whole "Blockchain not Bitcoin". A blockchain on its own is just like you said, a slow database. It needs to have the other core tech from Bitcoin to make it special (POW, P2P, Cryptography, etc). Also... What is the incentive to maintain the ledger without a valuable token?
A lot of people don't understand Bitcoin (I dont blame them, stuff is complex) but the whole Blockchain not Bitcoin idea is totally nonsensical. Probably will be a few more years before the general public/enterprise realizes this.