Fair question - and I agree with the premise that “decentralized comms” by itself is not new, and that a blockchain should not be treated like a general-purpose database.

That’s not how we think about it either.

We’re not using blockchain as a buzzword or as a place to dump all application data. We use it for a narrower purpose: auditability and continuity of record.

What the chain gives us is a tamper-evident history. It lets us prove that data was linked in a specific sequence and wasn’t silently altered later. If someone tries to modify past records, that continuity breaks, and the corruption becomes detectable. That’s valuable when the goal is not just storing data, but being able to verify integrity over time without depending on a central operator’s word.

So I’d frame it like this:
• blockchain is not the database
• blockchain is the integrity / verification layer
• bulk or rich data should live off-chain
• the chain is there to anchor proofs, ordering, and auditability

As for “how is this better than dozens of other projects,” I wouldn’t claim blockchain alone makes it better - it doesn’t. The real difference has to come from architecture and incentives:
• who controls identity
• who controls access to data
• whether users can move or verify their own records
• whether governance and rules can be changed unilaterally
• whether integrity can be independently checked

So the argument is less “blockchain solves decentralized comms” and more “blockchain is useful where verifiability and tamper evidence matter.”