RIP? Please. Peak Chromecast Was Almost a Decade Ago (Premium)

It's the end of an era. But don't mourn the passing of Chromecast: Google's little dongle that could peaked several years ago and has been in a downward spiral ever since.

I will never forget how I found out about the original Chromecast. A friend of mine on the Windows team at Microsoft--we share the same birthday, co-celebrated to this day via an annual text message exchange--excitedly pointed me to a Google announcement about a new device for the living room called a Chromecast. It was unclear what this thing, a weird-looking dongle, had to do with Google's web browser. But as my friend explained, you could plug it into an HDMI port on the back of your TV and use an app on your phone--it worked with Android phones out of the gate, of course, but also the iPhone and iPad--to control what was happening on screen.

We never agreed on this device.

My friend thought it was a great idea, primarily because it was so inexpensive--the thing cost just $35--and, I suspect, because it wasn't an Apple TV or tied to Apple's insular ecosystem; he was an Android guy, and like many in that early era, had lined up firmly on one side of that debate.

I wasn't convinced. My first reaction was to wonder how this would work if you were watching TV (or some video) and the doorbell or phone rang. With an Apple TV (or cable TV, or whatever else), you would simply pick up its hardware remote, press a physical button to pause or mute the playback, and respond to the interruption. With a Chromecast, you'd ... what? Pick up your phone, authenticate (back then using a PIN or a pattern), find and then launch the app if it wasn't already loaded, and then peck at the screen to pause it? That seemed inefficient. Surely, Google could just add a remote and charge $50 for the package. That would still be inexpensive, wouldn't require an app, it would be a lot more usable.

So I bought one. And boy, was I not impressed. The Chromecast was "small, cute, and inexpensive," I wrote in August 2013, one month after the device's initial release. But it was also "underwhelming" compared to Apple TV, Roku, and WD-TV, the other living room "streamers" I had at the time.

"This thing is a joke," I wrote. "Chromecast isn't a digital media set-top box. It's a dumb wireless display dongle. For $15 more you can get a complete, freestanding Roku box that comes with its own remote control. No-brainer." Worse, the device was limited to streaming content from the Google Play Store (music or video), Netflix, and YouTube. Those other devices supported many more services, like HBO GO, Vudu, Crackle, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, MLB.TV Premium, Disney, EPIX, and SyFy. Roku, at the time, supported over 750 services.

That first Chromecast also required a USB-based power cord and, on most TVs, an HDMI extension cable. It only supported Wi-Fi. And the app-based setup was complicated and buggy. "I'm not going to review this piece of crap," I concluded. "And you shouldn't...