One advantage I see is that you can automate/script/code the whole process, from top to bottom, including the means of payment, without needing individuals to sign up with credit cards or bank accounts, and without needing to trust third parties.

If costs and functionality are equivalent to our current solutions (like S3), then the cryptocurrency ecosystem is certainly better, but how much better is it? That is arguable and I would expect the developers to be inflating its value quite a bit.