the reason the premium consumer market doesn't sell dumb TVs is that it would wring all of the profits out of selling TVs. consumer electronics companies want t

the reason the premium consumer market doesn't sell dumb TVs is that it would wring all of the profits out of selling TVs. consumer electronics companies want to be seen as "adding value" on top of the display. if they don't, then manufacturers can just go direct to consumer, cutting them out of the value chain and redirecting profits to the manufacturers (and some to consumers in the form of lower prices). if they priced dumb TVs higher than their smart TVs, it would signal the negative value of the "smarts" in the TV, so they don't want to do that. so none of the electronics manufacturers really want to sell dumb TVs to the mass market, since it would be akin to committing corporate suicide (in that particular product category). of course one way around this is to brand a technical feature (as with sony's trinitron back in the day) and make that carry the value premium in the dumb TV, which would be how you'd approach the enthusiast segment you mention.