So, yes, they are broken when you think about them like that. But, they cover the 95% use case... That case where most people say "The Internet is down" ;)
Giving the 95% a good experience should always be prioritised above giving 100% of users a mediocre experience.
Browsing samsung.com on ones TV's close to a 0% use case, not a 95% use case for users. Therefore checking to make sure samsung.com is up helps about 0% of their users.
See, that doesn't really describe the situation here. The internet was working just fine, but samsung.com was down. As a result, the TV wouldn't let users get to Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, or other services because it insisted it was offline, even though those services were working perfectly fine. The problem is that that for virtually every user, the TV was insisting "the internet is down," but their connections were working just fine.
Giving the 95% a good experience should always be prioritised above giving 100% of users a mediocre experience.