So, it looks like this would be spun up by a private entity since there'd be no reason for individuals to set up nodes and support the network.

However, once spun up, you'd enjoy secured, immutable transactions between you infrastructure and your objects. One that scales to handle countless transactions without buckling.

The math and description is fascinating, but its pretty difficult to see the immediate use case, or what could even built on top of it.

So, if single companies will be building it out, then why bother putting it in a 'blockchain-like' data structure? Just use client auth and a normal database...

Unless they build out the infrastructure themselves and multi-tenant it - Tangle-As-A-Service.

No smart contracts either at the moment... And most of their Dev buttons don't link to anything: https://dev.iota.org/index.html#