Actually if it was "just" cheap and junky that would probably be fine with a lot of people here. Yes shrinkinflation is a problem but technology doesn't seem to have that problem, prices genuinely do keep coming down. The problem is what companies add on top of the cheap junk in order to obtain an extra revenue stream while also still selling cheap junk. In fact I think I would rather take cheap dumb junk than high-quality but spying on me.
For how long? Eventually, it will end up like Windows login. It won't work without an online account. In the meanwhile, they will soft corece you into adopting it by using passive aggression. They will slow down the bootup to a crawl, unless you connect it online. Those times are already really bad - CRT monitors used to heat up faster.
The ultimate point is, if you have to make compromises to retain your rights, then you might as well have no rights at all. You're already well on your way there.
Had to order large tv sets at work, got LG ones. Working mostly fine as dumb displays (for some connected device, delivering the pictures and using HDMI ARC to switch on both at once) but here and there, users are put to the home menu of the LG TV if something fails and need to click through some icons to get to the HDMI input and if you dare to connect them online you get that "Update" notification, when an update is available (even when you disabled auto update).