While modern smart shit definitely sucks in new and exciting ways we couldn’t possibly imagine in the CRT era, I have no doubt that even if we stuck with CRTs we would’ve ended up with the same shitty “smart” software.

Every time my TV takes longer to boot than my laptop, I’m tempted to start looking for conversion boards to turn the thing into a monitor.

You can find controller boards for just about any flat panel imaginable, including the ones built into laptops, that take HDMI in and do nothing but show a picture. I bet you could set up a profitable business pulling the smart crap out of TVs and turning them into monitors…