This might be the wrong place to complain about this issue. But "smart" TVs need to be replaced with "dumb TV + set top box" bundles. As it is now, the best panels are obsolete after a year.
The software can still update. Does the hardware needed to play a video really become obsolete in 1 year? Why, do hardware decoders improve that fast? People aren’t using these panels for games
That's how it used to work about 20-15 years ago before flat panels become popular and still does to the some degree - at least in Poland. You had a CRT tv and DVB-S receiver and service providers were teasing all the time with revolutionary tech that will come soon and change our life; we were promised home banking, shopping, VOD, interactive channels and content, even Internet browsing with phone line used as upload channel.
Years later, we got a new flat tv and gave up on satellite tv as ISP finally upgraded infrastructure to FTTH from classic copper and it made sense to have all services in one cable and pay for it at single provider. The Samsung UHD ICU 100 receiver comes with ISP branded linux software that handles tv features like EPG, show recording etc., parental control, USB external storage playback, there are also 3 VOD choices - ISP own one, Netflix and HBO in separated "apps", weather and radio interactive channels (radio comes with predefined stations you can't change). You can check bill, change the tv plan (channels are handled by company that still operates with DVB-S; once it was possible to buy channels separately, now you gotta aim at full packet offer). There are "ads" - of shows from VOD services but nothing else; no idea if device pukes anything if you decide to not opt-out from tracking but so far, I'm satisfied. The smart tv itself become obsolete quite fast - applications doesn't load anymore, Netflix notoriously crashes upon launching, but with this receiver it's like it got a second chance.
Summing up, some ideas advertised become the reality but on a different medium - VOD, interactive channels and content is here, done by FTTH (and of course DVB - all comes what you need and what you can have, where do you live) but some stuff never arrived or become pointless to implement (Internet browsing, home banking and shopping).
Unfortunately some devices don't support it, but I would guess most streaming sticks/boxes do.
Meanwhile I have a second-hand Apple TV and it's great, but if it weren't great I would keep my television and replace it with a Fire/Roku/Whatever device.
I suppose they could keep their smart TV and hook up a less shitty external device to do the smart things, but then the smart TV is just a dumb TV that takes 5x longer to boot and presumably wastes extra electricity in the process.
If I had any faith in these Android-based televisions to get long term software support and be at all reliable maybe it would be different, but based on track records in the ecosystem I absolutely don't. The life span of a television panel is many times as long as the effective useful period of an android device.
Since the panel is expensive and the brains are cheap, it makes more sense to have them split.