Mastodawn

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

Just use an AppleTV, Roku, etc. and connect it to the HDMI port.

TV is just a screen. That is how I've used mine for the last 5+ years.

I find roku really ad heavy and it sent tons of traffic back to roku.com. Same for firetv.

Exactly. If I wanted ads and surveillance I'd have just connected the smart TV directly to internet in the first place.