"Dumb" TVs cost much more than these smart TVs cost, since they are able to amortize the benefit from all their tracking/ads and price the hardware competitivel

"Dumb" TVs cost much more than these smart TVs cost, since they are able to amortize the benefit from all their tracking/ads and price the hardware competitively. Its a razor/blades model, only someone else is buying the blades... That said, the easiest way to make a smart TV into a dumb one is to connect it to your local internet through a Pi-Hole or other gateway, and then block everything but the Netflix/Amazon domains needed to stream content. If the Smart TV can't phone home, it can't leak data.