Yes, with LG, you can apparently still avoid connecting it with recent models, which gives you have effectively a dumb monitor with (for OLED) a glorious picture. Can’t vouch for other makes.
It will only show a popup when turned on to tell you you're not connected to the internet, but it goes away after a few seconds and then it's smooth sailing.
It remembers and selects the previous input when turned on, and it also seems to do input auto-switching when I turn on my set-top box. After I've configured the image parameters and whatnot, I never touched its remote anymore.
I want to play a video game, or connect my laptop to it. The input is already set to the correct HDMI port from previous usage, and it has a video signal on it.
When turned on, the TV still displays an app selection bar a the bottom that never goes away.
Also, I can't tweak the colors, only choose from a few presets. And color calibration is terrible, vivid yellows become some weird color.
Did a coulpe of updates several years ago, but I got worried it woud install an update with ads, so I turned off automatic updates.
But it kept pestering me, so I unplugged the Ethernet cable and bought a Fire Stick.
Now I'm getting automatic trailers on the Fire Stick when it boots up.