Ask HN: Why TV UI/UX is still bad?

A lot of the problem is that a smart TV UI's primary purpose is to show advertisements. TV mfgers these days get a large chunk of their revenue from advertising tie-ins, making the hardware a loss-leader of sorts. The UI is designed for 'in your face' sponsored content, not to make it easy to access content you choose.

I didn’t know that!

Maybe. My personal suspicion (lacking definitive evidence) is that the TVs aren't 'loss leaders' in the sense the vendors are actually loosing money on each one sold (accounting shenanigans notwithstanding). It's just that the viewers are so used to ads invading every possible place within eyeball range, why wouldn't you take advantage. More to the OP Q: Why spend a single penny improving the viewer experience, when that's not where such a nice bump in revenue is coming from. Once the TV is sold, the viewer isn't paying you any more until the next TV purchase, so screw'em.

My wording was poor. Apologies. I probably should've said, 'heavily subsidised' instead.