Seems dumb. Seeing this link has already made me to decide I actually won't buy a Samsung tv. I'll just get something else.
If we truly go the road of the dodo, I'll just make a side business rewiring "smart" tvs.
Second issue is that the average consumer wants smart TV's – they like that everything is integrated in the TV. Less remotes, less cabling etc.
As someone who doesn't really use the "smarts" on my smart TV, I'd quite like a well engineered (hardware + software), privacy preserving, smart TV. I see the appeal of an all-integrated solution. But none exists; most of the time the software is either garbage, or runs as if it was meant to run on hardware a few generations in the future. And as for privacy... sadly, few on both sides of the market prioritise it :(
Unfortunately they probably don't get the extra revenue from ads to be able to get placement in stores like Best Buy.