Big picture: limitations of smart contracts | Transition to Web3 - Course 3 | How Smart Contracts Work

Nothing is perfect! There are also many disadvantages of decentralized computing systems compared to traditional centralized systems:

Lack of flexibility. Once a smart contract is deployed, it’s now in a blockchain and almost impossible to change or modify. If there is a bug or error, you can’t do anything about it.
Open to manipulation. Everything is super transparent which means everyone can see your code. Malicious users can benefit from bugs if there are any.
Not suitable for sensitive data. Decentralized systems are not great for containing sensitive or valuable information since everything is transparent (there are some ways to overcome this, though).
Energy need. A lot of energy is spent to run the code and include resulting transactions in blocks. If the code gets complex, the energy spending increases. So, it’s better to keep the code simple, which limits the scope of what we can do.
Very limited data storage. The smart contracts are not viable to store data since data makes it much harder to run the code and increases energy spending. For example, as of December 2021, the total size of the Ethereum blockchain was approximately 330 GB, which includes all transactions and smart contracts. It’s almost similar in size to your laptop! 🫢
No outside-world interaction. Smart contracts are not well-suited to receive data from the outside world, which limits their capabilities. We’ll explain this issue and how to overcome it later. For now, just make a mental bookmark.

Nothing is perfect! There are also many disadvantages of decentralized computing systems compared to traditional centralized systems:

Lack of flexibility. Once a smart contract is deployed, it’s now in a blockchain and almost impossible to change or modify. If there is a bug or error, you can’t do anything about it.
Open to manipulation. Everything is super transparent which means everyone can see your code. Malicious users can benefit from bugs if there are any.
Not suitable for sensitive data. Decentralized systems are not great for containing sensitive or valuable information since everything is transparent (there are some ways to overcome this, though).
Energy need. A lot of energy is spent to run the code and include resulting transactions in blocks. If the code gets complex, the energy spending increases. So, it’s better to keep the code simple, which limits the scope of what we can do.
Very limited data storage. The smart contracts are not viable to store data since data makes it much harder to run the code and increases energy spending. For example, as of December 2021, the total size of the Ethereum blockchain was approximately 330 GB, which includes all transactions and smart contracts. It’s almost similar in size to your laptop! 🫢
No outside-world interaction. Smart contracts are not well-suited to receive data from the outside world, which limits their capabilities. We’ll explain this issue and how to overcome it later. For now, just make a mental bookmark.

Nothing is perfect! There are also many disadvantages of decentralized computing systems compared to traditional centralized systems: