I think the cool thing about this idea is that "cats" is just one possibility. It can work just as well with nearly anything that requires proof of ownership or uniqueness. Maybe property or mineral rights, or stock and other securities, etc.
Ebook's could increase in price when sold second hand (owned by such and such), an open source gaming asset exchange allowing people to buy and sell no matter the game.
Basically it crypto creates physical like scarcity in an otherwise abundant digital space.
That's the biggest deal about crypto IMO.
Combine that with AR and VR tech among other wearables and sensors and we won't just be digital nomads anymore, our entire world will have become completely digitized.
Humans are weird.
It's not the content of the book it's the affectional value of the book that's interesting.
What is the benefit game-wise to trade the cats on a public blockchain? To an outside observer it seems like the users have to pay transfer fees at the order of a dollar for no particular reason. As long as someone controls issuance (which is completely reasonable for this type of game) they could just track ownership as well which would be trivial to scale.
Moreover, ETH in this case isn't really solving a problem for anyone.
That said - there are certain instruments (like cats!) wherein contracts could be designed around the limitations, for which it might work well.
But for the things you listed, I don't think so.
For example, a problem for many low-income people in the U.S. is that consumer loans get sold and resold, often with poor record-keeping, and its hard for the consumer and the courts to know whether a creditor claiming nonpayment actually has a right to be paid. This is described in detail by Matt Taibbi in his recent book The Divide.
Well, a loan isn't a physical object so that example doesn't really apply to my comment, however, I still don't think it solves the underlying issue since the cause of the problem isn't a lack of reliable record keeping technology, it's "poor record keeping" which is a deliberate choice made by some businesses regardless of what technology is available.
Another example which is physical is real estate records in some third-world countries, where the central government wants to enforce property rights but bribes to the local register of deeds are effective at getting the records changed. (I read about this in an article in The Economist several years ago, so don't have a reference handy.)
Nothing really changes. You still have to trust that those private businesses will correctly use the record keeping technology. In a world with practical blockchain record keeping they would simply fail to use it or use it incorrectly.
And sure, you could spend a bunch of money setting up a government database and employees to run it, but at some point it's easier to write a few lines of code and be done with it.
(disclosure: advisor, board member)