[mikeryan]

Why are companies happy to sell me a "dumb" monitor, but won't sell me a TV unless it includes a bunch of fragile "smart" features?

Because “Smart Features” are a Trojan horse for giving the TV manufacturers ongoing revenue via ad sales and viewing metrics. This has allowed them to significantly mark down the TV selling prices as the sale price is now subsidized by the ad revenue.

Vizio actually pioneered this model with their “Inscape” product.

This is a trade off that most buyers will happily make, including the ones tech savvy enough to just not hook up the WiFi.

There’s zero market for TVs without smart features at the price they’d have to be sold at.

[BeFlatXIII]

…and people spam HN comments to this very day insisting that market failure cannot happen.