It’s not a dumb monitor. Even the new Apple headset will require internet connectivity and an online account. Also from what I’ve seen, most VR headsets have an option for not sharing your usage analytics. It’s not shared by default.
It could be. Just like you can use Android phones without signing into Google (or at least could, not sure how stock OS works nowadays as I'm on microG for the last couple years).
AFAIK, it will be possible to use SimulaVR either in standalone mode (with its own portable computer running everything) or in tethered mode (plugged into a normal computer which runs everything); there's even an option on the preorder page to get a version without the portable computer (it is my understanding that the portable computer is detachable, so the full version can be transformed into a tethered-only version simply by detaching it).
Well, there's always less official choices :-) For example on phones, we have rooting / jailbreak and the aforementioned microG.
On Oculus, there's a way to skip the mandatory account sign in and just sideload apps instead. [1] Some tracking will still be there, but I think as it grows more popular we'll also see custom ROMs for it. Maybe even some running the Simula OS?
I don’t mean just analytics. Right now precisely zero identifying data leaves the building when I boot my machine, power on my displays, and open some terminal windows and text editors.
I don’t know any VR setups available today that I can say that about. Even without analytics they phone home with identifiers (serial numbers, login cookies, etc) on launch/boot.
