Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted ads into users' own movies

For example - you don't like 16:9 monitor. Tough luck, you need to look at monitor produced for image professional to find something else ( well last time I looked for a monitor, which was some time ago ) Another one: in the middle of the camera pixel race, there were sweet spot models that just go replaced the year after and would end up on EBay for more than their original price.

So, all TV from cheap to expensive will become "smart". If you want a non-smart one will probably need to look at TV made for niche sectors, for a premium.

With TVs you're not usually lugging the devices around, but the TV has to be turned on and have volume (and sometimes other settings) managed with a separate remote. Since they typically have multiple HDMI ports, while the set-top boxes you mention don't have HDMI passthrough, you're encouraged to multiplex devices from the TV too, which requires manually selecting between numbered inputs with only a dumb OSD to help coordinate things. (If you have external speakers you might use a receiver to multiplex instead, but now you have a third remote and another dumb UI, not to mention potential latency issues for gaming.) In practice, the result is that among regular users, nobody can use someone else's TV without first being coached on their particular idiosyncratic combination of remotes, let alone try to play their own content by plugging a device in or wireless streaming or something shocking like that. Supposedly HDMI CEC helps with this somewhat by letting the device control the TV; I haven't used a setup with it, but there's only so much a standard for connecting disparate devices can do.

I want one remote - with the option to use my phone or voice control if I lose the remote - and a single, good UI that controls everything. That's only going to happen with a smart TV, but maybe the right device has yet to be made.

(One potential solution to obsoletion is for a manufacturer to make the brains of the TV a separate detachable part that fits into the design, like a laptop battery. Another would be to standardize on one HDMI port per TV, with CEC support and no UI when something is plugged in, so that you're basically required to plug in a box that then takes over the experience. Yeah, like that's going to happen.)

A TV without the annoying apps, added commercials, and privacy issues is a smarter choice. Stop calling them dumb TVs. They're "Smarter TVs".

There isn't a solution to devices becoming obsolete because manufacturers would sell less of a new product if the old one worked fine in perpetuity. Not only this but old iPhones, for example, run worse with new iOS versions because new versions are coded for new hardware. Hence the need to upgrade periodically. How many of us have a 486 that will run Dragon Age?