@burgerdrome maybe try free to air? My 10+ year old 27” Samsung Tv still going great and doesn’t spy on me because it can’t.
(Funny story, when the antenna distribution system in our apartment block died recently, we were the only ones to complain. We already knew we were the weird old couple in the building but that proved it decisively 🤪 We tried using The Internet while it was off but the experience was too awful, much as you describe in fact.)
@dj2mn @burgerdrome watching FTA doesn't stop a smart TV from doing all that bullshit stuff. The only way is to completely block its network access. And then you lose Netflix et al unless you have a set top box of some description...
...which is just as susceptible to enshittification :(
@unfnknblvbl @dj2mn @burgerdrome Exactly this. I got a Vizio and connected it to WiFi to be able to use the streaming apps. After I did that the “TV” app took me to a list of free and freemium streaming TV services. I no longer had access to my OTA channels. No where in the menus could they be found. I couldn’t enter a channel number directly and the option to perform a channel scan in settings was gone.
It wasn’t until I factory reset and didn’t connect to WiIf did it function like a normal TV. I ended up getting a cheap Roku for the streaming stuff.