I have a Samsung from 2014 or so and Netflix, Youtube still work great (used every day) and there are dozens of other apps available for all sorts of purposes.

I have a Samsung from 2014 or so and Netflix, Youtube still work great (used every day) and there are dozens of other apps available for all sorts of purposes. My wife uses the national news one several times a werk. And yes I also have a chromecast but the ux of requiring your phone to play something on the tv is vastly inferior to just using the tv. I'm not quite sure what all.the whining about smart tvs is about, maybe it really is bad when using budget tvs, but for mine it has worked great for years (so does the dlna client on it btw; it's a bit spartan but works just fine, and we've watched a lot of content through it).