Which is a genuine shame, since LG's webos was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise monolothic android market for smart tvs. I have an older one ( never updated, never connected ), but.. it is just one of many devices ( during easter yesterday I watched in weird state of drunken realization that the gizmo under tv is a set of cameras embedded into some external speakers ). I am officially out of touch with the current zeitgeist. Like... I knew I was an outlier before, but I honestly did not think it was this crazy.
I have been using a linux minipc with debian+xfce for more than 15 years and no regrets.
Yes having a keyboard with touchpad looked like a bit cumbersome at first, but then when al tvs went smart using an onscreen keyboard with a rf mouse is a nightmare.
I use a steam controller for controlling my media PC. Easy to type with and way more convenient than using a mouse. The only potential downside is needing steam running for keyboard capabilities but for me atleast that isn't a big deal.
The more you learn about smart TVs the worse they get. They're not cheap because TV technology got cheaper, they give away the TVs because they sell all your data. They even content match external sources over HDMI.
The Sony TV I have a blaring LED when the microphone is active, and you need to pair it independently of the remote itself so these parts function.
Sometimes during software updates, this pairing is broken, and it never tells me that the pairing has been removed, and never forces me to pair the remote.
TVs are used by multiple people too so how does that even track legally.
My partners will fly through menus agreeing to everything if I'm not there.
I'm using a universal remote that doesn't have a microphone and it complains about that too.