Of course, but I for one haven't come across a smart TV that has a decent user interface (not necessarily in features, but responsiveness). Some will regularly prompt the user to connect the device to the internet if there's no connection. There's also the issue of long startup times should the whole device be powered off.

I think the point is, you set the TV to the HDMI input (or whatever) and leave it there. Of course, you may still have to deal with laggy start up, volume controls (annoying, on my parents' Samsung), and the like.

But once the HDMI input is up and delivering, whatever content you pick comes through it from the smart box(en) upstream that are the only thing(s) connected to the Internet.

Of course, I suppose that may not work with people who have cable TV -- those cable TV boxes probably don't or will be made to not cooperate, as much as possible. Don't know -- don't have one, right now.

Maybe TV's will become like Windows computers, at least for some of us. Buy the "smart" version because it's the only one available or has a price break, and then "throw out" / don't use the OS that comes with it (well, except to display whatever the upstream box is putting out).

If we're to think of this from an economist's perspective, then you would want to get an equivalent television without the voice command feature, and it would be cheaper.

This is a really facile comment; markets are not an infinite continuous smooth differentiable array of feature/price points, they're a mess of bundles with obfuscatory pricing an some negative added value features that have been stuck on there because the OEM was paid to do so.

What does an economist's perspective have to do with real life markets? :)

When many smart tv's display adverts and commercial apps, you could argue that the smart feature is subsidising the TV.

Good point.

The point I was trying to make was that from a market efficiency perspective, this kind of thing should not be a problem.

So it might be more expensive to remove the feature altogether, including the advertising revenue it would generate. Such is the cost of privacy, apparently.

So TV's nagging to have a connection setup is something we can look forward to then?

Only if the economist was no good at economics.

I wouldn't trust that security model. Ultrasonic communication and other covert channels still provide a way to exfiltrate data. Best to remove the microphones personally.