How is the current situation possible? Shouldn't some company be able to buy the same panel, put minimal electronics and casing around it and sell it cheaper?

What if... Work with me here... The "Smart" TV company is paid by malicious hackers to include malware that snoops on its customers. That would allow them to lower the price of the TV to below the cost of the dumb TV. Mind you, they might have to call the malware "apps" and call the hackers "partners."

Ok, snark aside, what if the makers of Smart TVs call them "platforms," and they get a subsidy for bundling apps, and maybe even a revenue stream from people who sign up for things like Netflix through the TV?

Again, they will be able to make a cheaper TV if there's more money in apps than margin on hardware.

This is analogous to the situation with phones. For most companies, there's more money in the telecommunications service than in the hardware margin, so most phones are subsidized by the service providers.

So-called television is going there: It's just a platform for advertising, tracking, and services that generate revenue on subscription. This is going to relentlessly drive hardware margins deep into the negative, which makes it impossible to sell a "dumb" display for a reasonable price.

I fully expect that it won't be long before leaving a smart TV unconnected to the internet won't be an option: They won't work unless they can phone home.

Samsung's partners don't want you hooking a 4K TV up to an AppleTV and routing around their platform in favour of Apple's app store, not if you bought that TV at a discount thanks to their subsidies.

Right on. It's the same way a windows computer is often cheaper than the same computer without an OS. The seller doesn't get paid by McAfee, Microsoft Office, Norton, and so on for bundling their crapware and has to make up for that by charging more. All that crapware probably covers the license cost of Windows and then some.

You can bet Sony didn't put this app on the TV because they wanted to give consumers an improved experience for free out of the goodness of their hearts.

Sounds plausible. Is there any evidence that this is what's going on?

Presumably, the issue is scale.

If most people prefer the TV with 'more features' then they'll take it. The savings of using a dumb TV are probably not a lot, I'd ballpark it at $50. How many consumers are going to think "$50 dollars more to get netflix straigt on my TV? Great!".

Besides, that $50 advantage could well be lost in the smaller scale costs.