https://www.techdirt.com/2022/04/14/its-still-stupidly-ridiculously-difficult-to-buy-a-dumb-tv/
Historically, "smart" TVs aren't always particularly smart. They've routinely been shown to have lax security and privacy standards. They also routinely feature embedded OS systems that don't age well, aren't always well designed, don't perform particularly well over time, are slathered with ads, and are usually worse than most third-party game streaming devices or video game consoles.
Yet when if you go shopping for "dumb" televisions — as in just a high quality display with a bunch of HDMI ports and not much else, you're usually going to be out of luck. There are options, but guides on this front will usually shovel you toward computer monitors (too pricey at large sizes), or business-class displays (ditto).
[...] Of course it's challenging because TV manufacturers now make more money collecting and monetizing your personal data than they do selling the actual hardware. Last year Vizio noted it made $38.4 million in one quarter just from tracking and monetizing consumer viewing and usage data. It made $48.2 million on hardware (which also includes soundbars, and other products) in that same period.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RedGreen on Sunday April 17 2022, @04:16AM
"How confident are you that your smart TV isn't looking for unsecured networks to connect to in the background?"
Good luck finding one of them, unlike in the past when everybody and their dog had unsecured networks all the routers the ISPs give out these days have secured passworded connections. Even the people that have used a third party router have secured them. The only place these days you can get a network connection is at the chain stores, the Library or in the downtown area where the community network is present. Even then you go through their login process to get the IP, oh and there is setting in there where I actually have to turn on the wifi to use it and since I do not plug the cable in the network port it will be cold day in hell when it manages to get an IP from thin air.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen