Wouldn’t the android box, fire stick connecting the internet be doing the same thing that you don’t want your smart TV to be doing?
I always always thought getting one of those was to either circumvent the TV OS limitation (Example LG webOS) or to improve user experience on entry level smart TV or older smart TV.
All I know is piracy definitely has an impact on bad games/products and if you give the consumer something worth buying, they will most definitely buy it if or when they can afford to.
They might also recommend it to their friends or talk about it online which lead to additional sales that would not happen if they didn’t sail the high sea.