[deificx]

I would just like an option without the smart-stuff. It seems impossible to find, it's either very small and ugly TVs or built for something else like digital signage and very expensive.

I also have the impression that "everyone" buys an apple tv/Chromecast/etc anyways because of limitations in the smart tv or just ease of use. It makes a lot of sense to have these things separated except for TV manufacturers that want you to buy a TV more frequently.

[JetAlone]

That's ironic. You can pay your way around the nonsense surveillance/advertising infrastructure by buying the expensive functional displays that were intended for uninterrupted advertising infrastructure.

Can we produce substantially inexpensive black-boxed hardware that they desperately want in order to cut costs, but interferes in dissatisfying but barely tolerable ways with the quality of life too? Can we occasionally make it send messages in-store to their customers that the execs wouldn't want or approve of but find themselves putting up with because it's relatively benign compared to a worse bottom line?

[alkonaut]

The best dumb TV is a regular (i.e. smart) TV that you just don't connect to the internet, and use some separate signal source to.

Using a computer monitor or specialist/signage TV is both expensive and offers a worse experience.

[devmor]

Unfortunately, you still really have to do your research to find a decent one.

My Samsung TV has never been connected to the internet - we use a Roku box to feed streaming content to it - but it's still laggy and unresponsive by default, getting worse over the course of a few months until we decide to factory reset it again.

At one point it was so bad that I pressed the "change source" button a couple times, noticed it wasn't working, pressed the volume buttons, then the menu button, assumed the remote was dead, went to find some batteries in a drawer, took the remote batteries out, and then the TV rapidly switched sources, changed volume and opened the menu over the course of half a second.

[Nursie]

“Everyone” buys that 5 years down the line when the built-in services drop out of support, or they just buy a new tv.

And often by that point they’re looking for an excuse to buy the new shiny anyway.

[post_below]

Have you looked into high res projectors? Prices for the decent ones are comparable to TVs.