Certainly I could hook up a netbook or raspberry pi or whatever to my tv and get this stuff, after some amount of configuration and likely some amount of debugg

Certainly I could hook up a netbook or raspberry pi or whatever to my tv and get this stuff, after some amount of configuration and likely some amount of debugging now and then. And indeed I've gone that route in the past. But when the TV does it all for you, it's hard to argue that that isn't more convenient. Of course, one could certainly rationally choose to forgo that convenience in favour of increased privacy. I'm just saying the smart features aren't worthless.