How else would Sony track you while you watch a legitimate BD playing on your personal, paid-for hardware, silly goose?

Maybe sorta to update keys? But I think they will also do that if you pop in a newer disc. It's been known to cause an issue with playback of older disks, I think.

The whole process of buying media is broken.

good question, but i dunno, sorry. my guess would be probably not, based on the smart tv i never connected to the web that works just fine... but I'm an avowed and avid pirate and don't remember the last time i paid to watch something at home :D yarrrr

They don't really, out of all the complaints I've heard people make about Bluray players (Disc Recognition, Region Locking) I've never heard them complain that it needed to be connected to the internet. It's an optional feature, not a requirement.