My LG TV has been offline for the past 2 years (since I got it). I'm so much happier using the Apple TV.

I know people want "dumb" displays, but the reality is that these OLED panels offer industry-leading image quality and benefit from economies of scale, where most users want some form of built-in OS. A signage board cannot compete on price or quality. As long as TV manufacturers let me run it offline without issue, I'm fine with that.

Also fwiw, you can use apps like Infuse on the Apple TV for playing your own media files over the network. No Need for USB drives, just connect direct to the shared folder.

Same happy boat here. Mine has never seen the light of network access. I just don’t trust these things at all.

> Makes me more and more glad that I never let my TV on any network..

Sigh! These manufacturers have repeated this so many times that it is probably in their corporate subversion manual now. This is no consolation at all. They first introduce 'optional' features like this. Then they tighten the screw such that you get degraded performance if you don't use that feature. Finally they make it unavoidable. How are we missing it every time?

Haven't we seen how this evolved in the case of windows login using their 365 account? Haven't we seen how Android smartphone unlocking and custom ROM flashing got gradually more difficult over the years until we can't do that anymore?

If you rely on compromises or shortcuts out of this problem, you'll eventually find yourself without any. We need to nip this trend in the bud. Punish them with a tanked market.

I will point out, there are sometimes some really legitimate firmware updates that actually enhance or correct shortcomings on the TVs, especially for cinephiles on high-end units and for recently-released models that have firmware that needs work.

You can find people who cover the content of these updates, such as Vincent from HDTVtest.

What I tend to do is leave my WiFi off and then occasionally turn it on and connect for firmware updates, then disable it afterward.

I've also found that on my LG OLED that a lot of the crapware doesn't even have an option to function if you just never accept the terms and conditions or un-accept them. The UI doesn't make it perfectly obvious that you can do this but you absolutely can.

This stuff is very much anti-consumer, but can generally be mitigated by vigilant settings-chasing and a willingness to ignore the TV interface and use a dedicated streaming box with essentially no ads like an Apple TV.