It is totally bonkers. For long time the low tech recommendation (without setting rules on router/firewall) was to never connect TV to network, and use cheap TV box, to use streaming services. And then community's favorite - TiVo - started to show their own ads. Everything based on Android TV is also hit or miss. And might get enshitified with an update at any time. I think NVidia Shield is the only device other than AppleTV that works as expected. Only it didn't have an hardware upgrade in 5+ years.

It's unfortunate that the 2020s era Apple is so big/rich, in a way. Old Apple used to dabble in all sorts of niches, but now they need to sell 10M units/year to move the needle. So they'll never just make a TV now.