Dumb TV's are more expensive so you wouldn't be able to find enough people willing to pay that premium I think.
What would be great and much easier technically would be an (open, non-google) Chromecast clone that you can plug into a smart TV and then just not give the smart TV an internet connection.
My hypothesis is that dumb TVs don’t need to be more expensive, and that the savings of not needing a beefy SoC and more DRAM and Flash offsets what would otherwise be coming in from advertising.
Yeah I also don’t know why that’s some sort of established truth but it’s been going around for years now. It especially took off a couple of years back when a manufacturer exec (Bravia? Can’t find link now) said as much. I assume the info they can sell must be worth quite a lot of money if they can throw $50 or
$100 worth of stuff in it “for free”, where many of the TVs probably never even get an internet connection!
That leads me to another guess: manufacturers can’t have people not connect their TVs. So they’ll start offering rebates that you only get if you plug your tv to the internet.
What would be great and much easier technically would be an (open, non-google) Chromecast clone that you can plug into a smart TV and then just not give the smart TV an internet connection.