Is it? I’m still holding onto my TV from 2014 because it doesn’t have “smart” functionality. Every time I look at new ones I can’t find good dumb ones.
I wouldn’t be surprised if manufacturers start selling TVs that need to be activated online before first use, but I don’t know of any that do that already.
The real problem will be integrated cellular connectivity with no option to disable.
How the hell is this legal???
I'm waiting on some high quality "dumb" TV. I'll happily pay more for not having to worry about all this nonsense and my sense is that I'm not alone (though most people will happily continue to buy non-privacy respecting brands for a lower price).
I doubt that (at this stage) TVs have something similar builtin. When they come with Alexa/GHome/... it’s usually the software and not an actual Alexa device built in.
I work in a classified military space where the security of our equipment has been verified; our 80 inchers are all NEC and work wonderfully
When mounted in airports and the like, they are also mounted in environments where the lighting is usually such (i.e., much too bright) that nearly any screen (LCD or old CRT's) would generally appear "washed out". So the effect you see may not be the screens, but instead may be caused by the environments in which you generally see them operating.
Those cost way more than dumb displays did back before there were smart displays. Look at the 40-inch/43-inch models. They're like $800. I bought all my 40-inch 4k screens for under $300 in 2016.
The insane price gouging in these "professional displays" cannot be explained by advertising subsidies. We weren't paying those prices for equivalent-spec dumb TVs back when those were available for sale.
There’s of course a price difference between you $300 cheapo consumer stuff, and a $1000-2000 pro display.
I used to have these pro displays at home with Chromecast, works fine.
In my case, anything with a TV tuner requires an expensive license, so that's another motivating factor, but whenever I use someone else's "smart TV", I'm always relieved that I don't have to deal with glacial UIs and injected ads.
And, while I don't use the speakers, the TV's S/PDIF output is nevertheless handy for routing the audio output of whichever of the four HDMI inputs is active to the single S/PDIF input on my audio interface.
Finally, the TV has an RS-232 port that allows control of essentially all of the basic "TV" functionality, which was handy for setting up keyboard shortcuts for input switching, power, and brightness control; IME, monitor controls for such things that don't involve diddling with buttons on the side of the device itself are few and far between.
"Bitrate Up to 48 Gbit/s, as of HDMI 2.1"
To answer your question: -Everybody does.
User friendliness does fall behind a bit, I'll give that.
Another option is to buy a monitor not a TV, but again because of market scale you'll pay a lot more for a monitor that large. They don't sell enough to consumers for volume savings to kick in, and they are aimed at commercial use so there is at least a little more "make it good rather than cheap" incentive than there is in other markets.
Also, 40-inch 4k screens don't seem to exist anymore. The 43-inch and above have a MUCH larger inter-pixel gap which I can easily notice when using them as a monitor. 50-inch and above are too big for desktop monitor use.
I think the panel manufacturers realized they torpedoed their high-end monitor market with the 40-inch 4k screens which is why they had to nuke them and make the 43-inch displays so crappy.
This is also becoming increasingly problematic.
Unfortunately they no longer make them. The 43-inch Sceptres have a HUGE black space between the pixels, which you will totally notice if you try to use them as desktop monitors.