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Other thing I have started doing is to stop doing any upgrade for things that are already working locally. Example: no more upgrades for HP printer software.

Agreed, although if it has any online management / phone home / software updates, that can be removed.

In the end it's about trust if there's any other party involved. And you hope you can trust the next person who maybe buys the company.

> that can be removed.

I'm surprised that there isn't more legal action from this behavior

The thing is that may not have saved them here. They did an update to make it stop working. You would need to be local only and stay there and never use the online features.

"Auto-executes code from the internet" sounds diametrically opposed to "local only"

Yes. However, what will happen is most will be 'fail to local only' but if that update server ever comes back to life, you are doomed.

many smart home products use different protocols than wifi. This means they will not be updated without your knowledge and cannot connect online themselves.