Read the article, it has examples.

Modern TVs are a simple one.

You can't control any of them fully. Most you can't root.

Hopefully this lawsuit will be won by SFC, if it is, then anyone can sue their TV maker for the Linux kernel sources for their device and access to install modified versions of it, then replace their TV OS with AOSP/etc, or KDE Plasma Bigscreen or similar on a standard Linux distro.

https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://plasma-bigscreen.org/

But there is a simple alternative here: don't connect your TV to the Internet, use it as a dumb monitor for a FOSS streaming box (Linux PC or Lineage Android TV among others).

That's not an alternative: at the end you don't get a TV, you get a streaming box.

Perhaps you don't care about OTA TVs in the first place, but that's a different point.

That doesn't necessarily work anymore, some TVs now have Amazon WhisperNet built in, and will just update ads via your neighbor's Alexa.

How's that relevant to me not controlling the device?