Exactly, we bought my 75ish year old father in law a new TV because he was using a small SD flat panel and his eyesight is going.

But he hates it because there's a million buttons and menus to navigate, when all he wants is to type in the channel numbers.

It even needed a firmware update out of the box and he didn't have a clue why a TV would need new software and immediately panicked and refused to use the thing until we drove 150 miles to accept the update for him

We just wanted a TV that receives terrestrial TV and has a couple of HDMI ports for his DVR which he knows how to use without over complex menus, is that so much to ask?

How ridiculous is it that it's harder to get a product without extra nonsense added?

Just looked at a price checking site, checking the oled and "no smart tv" boxes. Zero hits.

It is not a question about affordable TV. The only ones that does not have smart features (as far as I can identify) are the cheapest LCD ones at the bottom of the price list.

The best alternatives that I can find is projectors or monitors, as those seems to so far not expect an Internet connection.

Let's play a hypothetical game. Your TV attempts to literally control your life. And is ultra HD and really cheap. But you have to keep its front facing camera uncovered or it blares an alarm saying that its front camera is covered. The alarm also activates, but more quietly, if it loses its internet connection.

Finally, there is a 30 second "sponsorship punishment" if it sees you have brought a product competing with its sponsor.

So say the sponsor is Coke and it sees a 2 liter bottle of pepsi in your home. It displays something literally equivalent to (not in exactly so many words) "we are punishing you for bringing pepsi into our home, because our sponsor is coke." It then counts down a 30 second punishment timer. As a shopper you dont have THAT strong of a preference between coke and pepsi. So the next time you need to watch a movie on the dictator (name of TV set) you buy coke that night instead of pepsi.

Does that cross a line? How would you legislate against it? Devices shall not act as slave owners over humans who have bought them?

Well, um....

My TCL is fine. I hooked an Apple TV and haven’t connected the tv to the internet since I bought it.

How about a second-hand TV ?

Then don't buy a TV.

True, but even if you're paying for a network-capable device, you still have the option of not plugging it in.