What I’ve ended up doing was I got an LG and never hooked it up to Wifi/internet, and then use an Apple TV to watch things on.
It’s a bit annoying if I want to switch to a game console as Apple TV can’t control the TV’s input channel, but otherwise works very well.
Make sure the TV supports HDMI CEC.
Yeah they do. Go to your shopping center or airport and you'll see LG and Samsung displays everywhere. And that's the key word, 'displays' not 'TVs'.
Both sell large displays meant for 100% user ownership with no spyware or mandatory internet connection, you just have to buy those and not their TVs.
The catch? They come at steep prices compared to consumer TVs, unless you can land a deal on the used market. But that's the cost of turning a profit on screens with no spyware and ads.
I don't think that the cost of TVs has gone down when they added spyware and ads.
You could say that that's the cost of turning less profits, rather, and I suspect that TV manufacturers keep the costs of normal displays high just to discourage their purchase by normal people.
Yes because you have to fetch a shitty TV remote with buttons inspired by a Boeing 747 cockpit, which must be aimed directly at the TV because it uses shitty infra-red.
Am I close? :)
The whole TV medium was fully and expertly enshittified by advertising decades ago.
The next level is today: Now you buy a giant plastic browser that includes a fully enshittified surveillance OS.
There is even a spec (as yet unused...) for Ethernet over HDMI (HEC , HDMI 1.4). Silicon Image (founder of HDMI) and Broadcom demonstrated the capability to TV manufacturers behind closed doors (says $searchEngine).
Whatever screen you use to watch movies, you will inevitably find your captain's log will contain more joy for the crew by discovering Jellyfin and sailing into deeper waters.
Then you hooked it to an external device of a surveillance capitalism company that trains on your data to manipulate you. Why?
Or plug in a cheap mini PC running a TV friendly Linux distro and give your data to no one.