You assume a lot of things, sometimes you have to connect it to the internet for it to work (such as robovacuums)

Why in the name of all that is holy would you need to connect a projector or vacuum cleaner to the internet in order for it to work?

Seriously, why do you think this is normal or acceptable?

This is bullshit needs to stop (and the scummy AdTech industry has a lot to answer for).

Vacuum for "convenience" of being able to turn it on with a phone.

I could actually see hooking up a projector to wifi to allow it to stream videos.

As far as I remember they mandate you connect to it in order for you to operate it.

We all know why, which is Adtech, but like cars or smart TVs, you as a customer either skip the entire segment or yield.

The streaming sticks the article is discussing basically need network access to function. They might support streaming from local media sources and file shares too, but that is also done over WiFi. Unless you have a properly firewall controlled home (very few people do, I'm pretty nerdy and most devices on my network can just NAT to the outside these days) then just giving it a WiFi connection gives it access to the wider network from your location.

You'll probably find the projectors are pretty much the same hardware and OS as the sticks except with the projection device added where the stick just has an HDMI output. It might have HDMI-in too so it can just be used as a screen for another device, but there are definitely some units out there that are network-play-only.

You aren't wrong about giving cheap crap like this access to your network (and via that the public network) is risky, but that convenience you (and I) would say no to is exactly what they are bought for.