If anyone here wants to solve a real problem and get rich doing so: start a company that makes dumb electronics. I’ll pay a premium.
Pro-tip: Go with higher-end LG OLEDs. They are fantastic, super fast, and designed for cinephiles. You can often get "certified excellent" open-box deals at Best Buy for a very reasonable price. They're equivalent to brand new.
People on Hacker News love to complain about ads. I hate them too, and go to great lengths to block them. To be clear, they're referring to the "suggested content" on the Home screen, which I'm not sure many people use. Either way, all of that is easily disabled in the settings.
If used with an Apple TV, set top box, or, best of all, 4K Blu-ray, it's a premium experience where you're in control of all the picture settings.
Check out @hdtvtest on YouTube for in-depth dives.
That'd just make you a useful idiot for those sellers. Better use the thing in whatever 'dumb' mode it offers, never connect it to the internet but only expose it to a restricted local network. That way you don't have problems with auto-updates, you don´t get ads, you're not being spied upon, etc. Of course all bets are off if there is an open wifi network around for the thing to connect to but those tend to be rare. There are bakers tales about devices having their own cellular access built-in but I have yet to see proof of something like that - and will abuse the hell out of it when I find it.