> Luckily with TVs you can freeload: just never connect it to the internet and only apply updates via USB. Stick an Apple TV / Chromecast / console into it for playback
With things like Amazon sidewalk, Samsung smartthings network, etc. it can still get data out
Wouldn't the data be a lot less useful to them? Instead of 'customer watched X show for Y minutes' it'd be 'customer X watched Y minutes of unknown on HDMI1'.
A low res, low quality jpeg once a minute or N seconds into a scene transition is quite small. I think audio fingerprinting can be effective and very low bandwidth as well.
With things like Amazon sidewalk, Samsung smartthings network, etc. it can still get data out