Newly purchased Vizio TVs now require Walmart accounts to use smart features

Walmart wants to connect what people stream "directly with retail interaction."

Ars Technica
Isn't that actually great? Just never create and sign into a Walmart account and now your TV isn't infected.

This presumes that, now or later, there won't be an on-screen message that can't be dismissed saying "Sign in to a Walmart account to enable all TV features."

There's plenty of ways they can interfere with attempts to use the TV in "dumb" mode. Heck it could refuse to show any video at all til you've signed in.

Yep. I bought a Samsung TV that I never even put online. It pops up with a half-screen display that lasts for 2 minutes every time I turn it on . Never again.

Samsung is top of my list of companies to never buy from.

Except SSDs, I guess. Would be nice if I could meaningfully reject all products from a given company. I'm sure they'll someday cram ads and spyware into those also.