• The author of the article is under the mistaken impression that losing the “smart” features into the TV increase the price. It’s actually the opposite.

    By injecting ads and bloatware into the TVs, the manufacturers earn more money, by far, than the cost of the features. A dumb TV would cost more.

    The best solution is to decouple them; get the cheapest TV you can with the video quality/size you want, then attach your own device to stream content. I use a modified Fire Stick due to price, mostly with Stremio/Torrential/Debrid, but there are lots of options.