But of course now that the TVs have an always-on internet connection, the manufacturers have realized they can extract more revenue (recurring revenue, at that) by spying on their customers and selling the data. So of course, they do it, and most people don't even know they're doing it, so there's little outrage from the mainstream.

> there is a definite profit motive to push smart TVs and only smart TVs

I would imagine that most customers would prefer a TV with Netflix (or whatever) than a TV without Netflix. At that point it becomes a decision of whether it's worth it to incur the cost of having a separate SKU without the "smart" bits, and it may not be.

Yes, the "smartness" benefits the manufacturer (to the detriment of customer privacy), but I would bet that even if all the sketchy bits were banned tomorrow, manufacturers would still make and sell about the same number of smart TVs.