This is equivalent of trying to sell a modern TV without support for any smart apps. FOR AN EXTRA CHARGE. Pisses me off that taxpayers will once again have to bail out the failed shitshow that will be a GM backruptcy.
I'd happily pay extra for a TV without a bunch of bad apps its chip can't run available. And you'd also have to because they're subsidizing the price of the unit to bombard you with ads.
100% agree. I still have a 40” 1080p dumb tv because I can’t find one that I trust to not do something annoying/invasive.
I nearly bought the same one my friend has (Samsung something) as it seemed pretty inoffensive, until he told me it had started showing ads on the menu screens a few months after he bought it.
I just blocked the TV's MAC address at the router, and plugged in an AppleTV (I trust Apple way more than any tv manufacturer). Turning it on just shows what on Input 1 (the ATV), completely bypassing any internal "smart" apps.
It doesn't fix the problem of the heavy broken OS the chip isn't capable of running to make every interaction a slog. Smart TVs are absolute dumpster fires at basic tasks like switching between inputs, after you jump through the 30 settings to turn off all the "optimizations" that make the image look like shit with the bonus of super high latency.