Reposting this from here from 2023, after I stumbled across it tonight and it hits hard.
The text in the image:
I love my smart TV. I love the way it takes a long time to boot up because it’s trying to refresh the advertisements on the home screen. I delight in the way it randomly restarts because it’s downloaded an update without asking me, each of which makes the TV slower and slower with every subsequent install. I adore the way it buries the apps that I want to use, and that I use without fail every single time, below the apps that it’s being paid to promote and which I have never touched in my life and would never use without the cold metal of a glock pressed hard against my sweating temple. I am infinitely thrilled by the way the interface lags constantly, due to the need to have one thousand unnecessary animations rendered on hardware ripped wholesale from a ten year old phone. I feel myself borne aloft on wings of pure joy when I am notified that my data will be collected and analysed to determine my usage patterns. Even now I am writing this from a field of beautiful flowers and soft luscious grass as I lie and look up happily at the bright blue sky, smiling happily to know that this is the future of technology
I used a Fire TV for a while (because it was cheap and you could sideload almost any Android app), but at some point I got tired of the awful (and increasingly worse) UI and sluggishness of the device, so I splurged on a Shield TV Pro a few years ago. It's night and day in terms of performance alone - and yes, you can change the function of any remote button with the Button Remapper app. Custom launchers are also possible, although I haven't tried this in a while.
The main downside is that the device has much less reliable WiFi, for some reason. After some infuriating days of troubleshooting attempts, I solved that issue once and for all by relocating a meshnet satellite close to the device and running an Ethernet cable.