so:

it has blocks

the blocks can be orphaned, which means they must be a chain

it's a blockchain.

it's a blockchain payment ledger, to be exact.

there is other kinds of data that are a common than money also. voting, registries (deeds are a type of NFT). the protocol doesn't have to have a payment ledger. the security budget is much lower. the service itself is a utility not just to the network as an additional replica but also to the user because they always have a map of everything locally. point of sales ledgers also have a utility for this, in fact the nostr marketplace protocols are exactly this - public (but encrypted) point of sale ledgers, product listings and inventory. again, these are types of data with an intrinsic value to a lot of participants so bolting on a token to them is just going to poison them into becoming a way to fleece retail, as usual.

that's why we don't need another global public ledger. there already is one. there is multiple protocols for aggregating transactions with low trust requirement, if 10 minutes clearance time isn't fast enough for your payment requirements.

we do, however need alternatives to:

BIND

OAUTH

DNS

TLS

and these all have intrinsic utility, and partly why despite being vulnerable to corruption these systems have remained mostly just. but not perfect, and always a splade of damoclese hanging above you when the Man decides to rug you.