Not really though

Look no further than TV manufacturers, the moment one of them decided to substitute below market prices with selling people’s data the others had to follow to stay competitive!

I still wonder how true this really is. Every time this subject comes up, all I seem to find are people who just want a good screen, and often who don't mind paying a higher price for it. Presumably there are also people who are sufficiently price-sensitive when buying a large flat-screen TV that the reduction from having bundled junkware makes a difference, but as far as I know, I have yet to meet one.

If anything, by now I'd say "smart TV fatigue" is setting in, much the same as "smartphone fatigue" a little while ago. Enough people have had these devices for long enough to see all the a-bit-too-clever software get out of date and stop working, and then they start to see the bundled online services and so on as a negative and start asking their more techie friends and family for advice on how to avoid the problems next time.

I wish I could buy a really good screen with no “smart” software at all.

I can plug an Xbox if I want, or a shield, or a Roku, or an Amazon fire stick/tv, or an Apple TV, or a chrome cast

Just add a bunch of ports and KISS.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

The irony is that you can still buy just a good screen with good connectivity options and basic controls, but the market is advertised as "display screens" intended for things like advertising or video walls.

I don't understand why the same manufacturers/distributors offering these products don't also pitch them as TVs with well-defined specs and no junk, probably with some sort of "expert"/"pro" branding that makes them look like a high-end choice.

You could pitch one of those, a basic 2.1 home sound system or the like, and maybe a small control/switching box that everything plugs into and that also accepts your source feeds, and you've got a mini home-theatre-style arrangement that could be quite attractive to those who value decent gear but don't have the budget and/or space for a full home theatre setup that would cost at least 2-3x as much for entry-level equipment.

> The irony is that you can still buy just a good screen with good connectivity options and basic controls, but the market is advertised as "display screens" intended for things like advertising or video walls.

That used to be an obvious possibility, but recent products in this category tend to run variants of Android/Tizen/webOS complete with Wi-Fi to support remote management. There are still a few relatively "dumb" models of commercial displays out there, but they seem to be a dying breed.

Because only two manufacturers make large OLED screens and maybe three make advanced LED screens and they are all massive conglomerates that control the market.

I suppose my implied question here is why control the market in that way even if they do have the practical ability to do so? If there is a market for simple, good quality products and people willing to pay a fair price for them, why would you exclude it, particularly in favour of a market where more of your revenue comes from dubious sources that could backfire in terms of PR and/or be less reliable in terms of future potential earnings?

What about not simply enabling wifi connection on the tv? My few year old sony tv is the dumbest possible secondary pc monitor, with great screen quality. I couldn't care less about any of those apps, I have vastly superior PC for those if needed.

This is a dangerous argument to rely on, because it still allows for devices to phone home via independent means. Just as your new car may well have some sort of embedded mobile network access today, so your TV may come with a built-in SIM, or use some kind of mesh network that doesn't rely on your own home WiFi access.

The problem is the principle that it's OK for your devices to monitor you at all without your explicit knowledge and consent -- or even with those things, if the market leaves no reasonable alternative and so the consent isn't really consent at all.

I think this is only true for a small subset of tech-savvy people. Anecdotally, everyone I know that doesn't work in tech loves their smart TV—it's way more convenient for them than having a separate device connected to the TV, and they don't really care (or even know) about the privacy implications. And I suspect that this must be true more generally, otherwise companies would continue to make higher-cost "dumb" TVs to cater to that audience.

I know a lot of people who did like the "smart" features, in that they could stream online content of one kind or another direct to their TV.

I think the change we're starting to see among my group now is that the built-in software is starting to get out of date and not necessarily being maintained by the provider(s) of the service(s) affected, meaning from the user's point of view, the TV just turns on one day and can't connect to service X any more, with no way to fix it.

I'm not sure privacy has much to do with the discontent, because as you suggest, I doubt many people are even aware of the kind of tracking that is going on. When "smart" TVs or related devices get updated firmware and start doing things like injecting ads it really upsets people, but until they have some indication that any of this is happening, of course it doesn't really affect them or their opinions.