I mean... Its even in the FAQ. It's a question people care to ask.

Kind of proves my point. Someone asked a question 8 years ago, that doesn't look like something that has any effect on adoption really.

So the question always being around kinda does suggest there's difficulty.

Unless it's somehow become widely used?

You make it sound like it's almost a crime not to.

But now I wonder why your aggressivity sounds so defensive.

Practically because lots of "open" wifi networks have captive portals that don't actually get you Internet access without further action, and legally because using random networks without user confirmation is rather dodgy.

But now I wonder why your aggressivity sounds so defensive.

It's an urban legend that people keep repeating, and nobody can ever point to a specific case of it happening. It would be extremely easy to demonstrate: set up an open network, take a new or factory-reset TV, and wait.

I’m not trying to be obtuse here. I really want to understand some sort of reasonable moral justification for actively avoiding paying for a service that you are using / circumventing the mechanism by which the business makes money.

This is generally of no interest to consumers.

That’s a good thing. I don’t want to change my habits every time a designer of whatever product I use decides that he deserves a raise and breaks my workflow in some subtle way.