The value of the token increases with the number of people who participate in the network (Metcalfe's ...) and due to speculation on the underlying value of having trust and consensus without a centralised authority.
The problem with centralised authority is that, despite the very best intentions of those involved, the centralisation of power reduces the overall ability of a market to operate freely, and the blockchain is the product of Anarcho-Capitalists who believe markets should be free from any central power.
A move from paper copies to a digital format would already be a good enough solution, which I think is your point, but here there is an opportunistic use of a single tool to avoid the costs of a couple of servers with remote backups times the number of locations needed for full coverage.
edit: I was responding to the wrong thread but I'll leave it anyway. This refers to the use of blockchain for land registry in Ghana.