i guess you could use a smart tv as "dumb" output only by using the HDMI input and making sure it doesn't connect to the internet (to be able to take screenshots and report them 😀 )

but yes it's ludicrous how anti-consumer the whole smart tv hype is, apparently one reason they're relatively cheap is that companies subsidize it for the adware/spyware on it, so there's no competing without "smart" functionality