[overscore]

If you don't need any "TV" features such as a tuner or speakers, you might consider using a monitor. I use a 32" 4k monitor as my "TV".

In my case, anything with a TV tuner requires an expensive license, so that's another motivating factor, but whenever I use someone else's "smart TV", I'm always relieved that I don't have to deal with glacial UIs and injected ads.

[jasomill]

And I use a 55" 4K TV as my "monitor", because sub-$1,000 >>30" monitors with internal 3D LUT-based color calibration aren't a thing.

And, while I don't use the speakers, the TV's S/PDIF output is nevertheless handy for routing the audio output of whichever of the four HDMI inputs is active to the single S/PDIF input on my audio interface.

Finally, the TV has an RS-232 port that allows control of essentially all of the basic "TV" functionality, which was handy for setting up keyboard shortcuts for input switching, power, and brightness control; IME, monitor controls for such things that don't involve diddling with buttons on the side of the device itself are few and far between.

[unnouinceput]

What is said TV response time? If it's bigger than 2 ms then that's a no go for me.

[octoberfranklin]

Because you have a 500hz HDMI output? Yeah right.

[unnouinceput]

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

"Bitrate Up to 48 Gbit/s, as of HDMI 2.1"

To answer your question: -Everybody does.

[therealx]

To make matters worse, the SmartTV sold someone in my family just had the SmartTV apps (netflix, etc) taken forcefully off the device because they no longer wished to keep it up to date.

[rzzzt]

The ubiquitous display control boards with HDMI/VGA on one side and a FFC connector on the other sold... just about everywhere also don't have ads. (Yet.) So get a working panel, pair it with such a thing and you are off to the races!

User friendliness does fall behind a bit, I'll give that.