The meme of "if you're not paying, you are the product" is, of course, true, but it doesn't acknowledge the host of cases when you are the product even if you're paying. This guy basically paid to be spied on.
Even in areas other than privacy, my bank mistreats me far worse than Internet companies like Google and Twitter.
Not to mention that in a multi-sided ecosystem, Internet companies need to keep both users and advertisers happy, so even if you're not paying, your desires still factor into the decision.
To be clear, I didn't say this meme is a lie, just that it's a half-truth. It makes sense to some extent.
Oh boy is this true, I'm on my fourth bank for my UK business and they have all been appalling. I'm not very happy with the current one but have given up on the idea that any other might be better.
Read it again, you are falling in a logical fallacy. The phrase is only saying that "if you are not paying", it doesn't make any claims to what happens when you are paying.
So, a small, 720p TV? In other words, a TV most people don't want? I fail to see how that's an alternative when I'm looking for a 60" 4K model, not to mention I have no idea what the quality of the device will be.
I worked at Samsung and given how much they poured into Tizen and the various in-house services for SmartHub, I guarantee they aren't making any significant money from them. They have zero leverage with apps for services that people consider a given (like Netflix). And a lot of smaller partnerships don't end well (see Peel for instance).
I'm not sure about brands that went with Android TV, but Google is pretty smart in such partnerships and fully takes advantage of the fact that OEMs like Sony don't have the internal resources to come up even with a half-decent OS.
Questionable updates that push things like samba.tv are probably a (poor) afterthought.