Pretty much this. The "smart" features of a TV really don't cost much at all, and make a TV a LOT more marketable. Given that perspective, why would a TV manufacturer choose to remove the smart features from the TV? This wouldn't enable them to sell the TV for a lower price.

The "smarts" of a smart tv is just spyware(adware) by a different name that actively subsidizes and reduces the cost of low-end TVs.

I've found the opposite to be true, gaming monitors have a ton of specs that their buyers will sacrifice panel quality for, and manufacturers take full advantage of it.

You won't find normal users willingly playing the panel lottery for example

(for those not familiar, that's buying $1,000+ monitors knowing there's a good chance you'll need to return them because of panel defects, and just returning them until you find one that's acceptable)