If anything, companies try to double-dip and serve multiple masters. See: the security and privacy mess in smart TVs. Last I checked, LG wasn't giving their TVs away.
No, but they're selling them at cost, and using monetization tactics to make up for that over the long term.
Fortunately, it's not so bad, just run firmware updates after you get the new tv, and then disconnect it from the internet.
This is true, and you transition from customer to eyeballs once you take delivery of the product, but it is also tempered by the fact that they would like to sell you your next TV as well.
In fact there is a pretty strong argument that they are leaving money on the table by not doing so.
Imagine you like your gmail and you have had it for the past decade. If Google charges only $1 per year across say a billion users that is a billion dollars.
Even if they lose some users at the margin it may makes sense...
According to wikipedia gmail had 1.5 billion active users in 2019.
As internet services mature and stop growing exponentially it makes sense to charge for them.
Yes it is true that some might switch but what makes more sense from the perspective of most users?
I long for a post advertising world. What cataclysmic event or human evolutionary change could cause that, I wonder.
Is there any sci-fi that has a world without advertising or is that so far-fetched it’s unimaginable to even futurists?
Even funnier, if Google search worked effectively for product discovery the vast majority of advertising would not be necessary.
I'll just let LG collect my viewing habits if that's what it takes for a good experience. But I did decline all of the agreements that have anything to do with data collection, so hopefully they're not being overly intrusive anyway.
This way I still have a "dumb TV" (apparently impossible to get now).
Second option would have been to get a projector.
It seems fine: no ads, nothing spamming, and it has an option to not share any data, which presumably (!) it pays attention to.