In reply to Peter Knight.

Well said. Gutenberg is not trying to change how data is stored—quite the contrary. WordPress flexibility and power is something we should preserve and expand. The main goal, and the spirit behind content "blocks", is to raise the user experience side of what WordPress is already capable of to the modern expectations of visual manipulation of content, and to overcome issues generated from fragmentation of input at an interface level.

Blocks don't make fields obsolete, it should make them easier to use down the road. The next steps are indeed what you described, since a block could store data in meta fields, in separate post types, in the content, in site settings, etc; it just becomes a visual implementation of a meta-box that gives richer manipulation capabilities, while retaining the flexibility and power.

I'd consider Gutenberg an attempt at systematizing how users can interact with their data in a visual way, wherever it may be.