It sucks being in an apartment complex because there are always a bunch of unsecured networks floating around that the TV, or whatever, can connect to even if you don't manually do it.

Back when I first started my career, I generally disagreed. My first job was at a connected device startup in the IoT space. The whole ethos around data was pretty good. Maybe it was because the tech side of the company I worked for was 99% ex-gov contractors (aerospace, low level routers, submarines...).

We collected such minimal information. Basically only enough to allow for OTAs, functionality, and debugging. Thinking back, we could've collected so much more.

I remember when Alexa hit the market and we (as a company) thought there's NO WAY amazon was making any money on them.

Today... NO WAY. Along the way the value stopped being "This product is priced so we can make a profit" and became "The data we collect is more valuable than the sale".

"Never give ANY dumb device internet"

The smart here really isnt the issue.

They are likely going to have access. Lots of things have built in cellular modems these days, and your cable provider already uses your cable modem as a hotspot for other people.

You can do things like physically modifying your TV, or seeing if there are undocumented settings to disable things.

Well, nowadays the purpose of a TV is usually to watch content over the internet, so I wouldn't call it "stupid" to connect the TV to the internet.

You might say it's naive, but is it really naive to buy a TV and expect it to be a device to display audiovisual content and not a spyware/adware machine?

I feel like it's not the user's behavior that should be put into question here, but the borderline criminal behavior of the manufacturer.

Except... some of us like to stream content on TVs. And some of us really don't like the idea of maintaining yet another extra piece of hardware for that.

And so your TV does need Internet access.

The same holds for many other devices, in different shapes. Sure, you can opt out of civilization completely to avoid all the side effects of late stage capitalism, but maybe it's worth applying a bit more nuanced thinking to find a balance that doesn't throw you back to the 1800s. (Unless you like the 1800s, in which case, enjoy)