What does it matter? Unless you’re going back to cable you’ll have to get a “smart” something or other and the “smart” ones always let you pass through the signal anyway so you might as well not deal with all the wires.
…all what wires? Back to cable? Not sure what you are referring to. I have a single HDMI cable plugged in to a dumb TV from a computer I control. All content comes in through that (with the benefit of things like ad blocking).
Smart TVs have features designed in part to collect data on you and facilitate things like serving you ads. Why would I want that as opposed to a TV without such “features”?
It wouldn’t be an issue if the industry still offered dumb TVs, but by and large, they don’t (for good reason – they can profit off of the collected data).
Generally yes, but as that gains popularity, the industry will look elsewhere to get their connection.
The world is bathed in cellular data networks and WiFi. I’d suggest that we aren’t that far off from TVs that are connected without your knowledge.
And even if you find that tinfoil-hattish, the key point is: having the hardware in your house to begin with is a security risk. Why must I buy a TV with a camera in it when I literally have no personal use case for a camera in my TV?