this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
595 points (91.3% liked)

Technology

60052 readers
2858 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] MagicShel@programming.dev 272 points 4 months ago (5 children)
[–] jqubed@lemmy.world 111 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] N1ghtstalk3r@lemmy.world 67 points 4 months ago

Add another casualty to the list:

https://killedbygoogle.com/

[–] bitflag@lemmy.world 31 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They aren't really, they are just upgrading it to a full set top box and rebranding it.

[–] IamAnonymous@lemmy.world 29 points 4 months ago (1 children)

But it went from a dongle to a set top box for more than 3 times the price. It’s not really the same device, just similar functionality.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 181 points 4 months ago (6 children)

In place of the Chromecast, the company will offer the newly announced $99.99 Google TV Streamer,

They're replacing it with a very similar product. Nothing to see here.

[–] LaggyKar@programming.dev 226 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (72 children)

A more expensive, clunkier product, with a bunch of needless fluff in it.

[–] DampSquid@feddit.uk 122 points 4 months ago

Enshitification 101

[–] fraksken@infosec.pub 29 points 4 months ago

For which they will be able to offer subscriptions in a year or 2.

load more comments (70 replies)
[–] Thann@lemmy.ml 34 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Similar product that costs 4 times as much and has AI features...

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 23 points 4 months ago (2 children)

They’re replacing it with a very similar product. Nothing to see here.

Like they do with messengers every couple of years.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] _pete_@lemmy.world 152 points 4 months ago (27 children)

I feel the original Chromecast was probably the last truly great original Google product, it was simple, it was inexpensive and it worked - you just plugged it in, joined your network and you were off, there really wasn’t anything like it at the time.

I really hate what they’ve become.

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 30 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What's funny is that was actually the start of them becoming who they are now. There's a litany of evidence they stole the Chromecast technology

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (26 replies)
[–] Gloria@sh.itjust.works 85 points 4 months ago (3 children)

"Yes I know the customer learned that product name and has a good connotation with it, but how about we change the name to something completely different?"

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 77 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Really, rebranding from Chromecast to Google TV Streamer? Who the fuck was the genius that greenlighted this?

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 50 points 4 months ago

Hi, I'm the project lead on Chromecast and I'm here to talk about what my team's been up to maintaining this popular product

The board: yawn

Hi, I'm the project lead on the new Google TV Streamer that we've just launched, let's look at these exciting new adoption numbers and talk about how we plan to keep this incredible momentum going

The board: Wow! Amazing stuff plz take this large bonus

[–] BleatingZombie@lemmy.world 47 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I knew someone who worked at a really well loved local restaurant. One day a new manager came in and IMMEDIATELY wanted to change the name. According to him, you should change a restaurant's name every 2 years

Why would you ruin the recognition you already have? He was also planning on changing the name to be the exact same as a business down the street. I think he was an idiot

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] thezeesystem@lemmy.world 67 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Me - Ok Google, give me a open source way to turn my raspberry pi into a 4k streaming box.

Google - Got it. Playing Tyler Swift on living room tv

Me - wtf?

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] exanime@lemmy.world 58 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Add it to the pile of dead google projects

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 35 points 4 months ago

Dead successful projects.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] I_Clean_Here@lemmy.world 54 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Did y'all even click the article?

It will be rebranded, basically, to become the Google TV streamer. The tech is not going anywhere.

"In place of the Chromecast, the company will offer the newly announced $99.99 Google TV Streamer, which launches on September 24th."

[–] SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 46 points 4 months ago (1 children)

$100 though ... a Chromecast used to be like $35.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 52 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

RIP to a real one.

Back in the day when streaming was cheap as hell and made sense as all things were on Netflix, having a Home Mini with and a Chromecast was bliss.

I used to have a shortcut for the phrase "I'm so tired", it would start playing Star Trek TNG from Netflix on the Chromecast monitor and it just werked. Saved me from a bad trip once too, I was really uncomfortable on 135ug so in a desperate attempt to hold onto reality I said "alexa...uhmm...uh...hey google play RoboCop" and it just worked.

Only thing is it played the wrong RoboCop (2014) but that only distracted me from spiraling further, like "hold up Samuel L Jackson was in this?"

It feels weird to say but I was a genuinely happy customer. Then the home mini stopped working as well, started triggering by itself, didn't hear words right, then the Chromecast had trouble updating firmware and rebooting. Then Netflix platformed that douchebag chapelle.

Now all that's left of it is the pihole I used to block ads for it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 48 points 4 months ago (6 children)

The Chromecast was one of the few things I really liked made by Google. I always have one in my travel bag and it's basically like bringing your own home theater to the hotel with you. I had a time where I lived in hotels and AirBnB's for almost a year and this thing was god send.

They have some other device which they want to sell which will replace it, but that one is big and clunky, not meant for traveling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSSI_Ht6Mis

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Amir@lemmy.ml 42 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Literally all my friends know the name "Chromecast", why would you rename it

[–] Venator@lemmy.nz 32 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Why does Google do any of the dumb shit they do?

[–] darkevilmac@lemmy.zip 26 points 4 months ago (1 children)

To justify the salaries of their product managers

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] C126@sh.itjust.works 39 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Not surprised. Like chromecast audio, chromecast couldn't really serve an adequate amount of ads. Basically it's only value was it forced you to use stock youtube app to stream preventing any adblocking, but if you cast your screen, then it can't stop adblocks, so it makes sense to discontinue this product. There's some open source projects out there that might be worth looking into, NymphCast is one I saw, uses a rasberry pi.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] 108@lemmy.world 38 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Another one for the graveyard

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 38 points 4 months ago

"okay, what successful product are we going to kill next?"

[–] chevy9294@monero.town 35 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm waiting for Gmail, it has to be soon :)

[–] Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.world 25 points 4 months ago (3 children)

No the NSA, CIA, FBI and all the other alphabet agencies would never allow it.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] WarlordSdocy@lemmy.world 33 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Don't know anything about newer Chromecast but I really love my older one. Its just a dumb stick with no apps built in that I can cast stuff from my phone to. The only recent annoying thing with it is that the YouTube app changed the behaviour when you're connected, so now instead of tapping on a video to bring up a menu asking whether to play it now or add it to the queue it now just defaults playing it now when you tap on it. Makes setting up a queue of videos really annoying now cause you have to tap on the three dots to add it to the queue now.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Antergo@lemmy.ml 32 points 4 months ago (3 children)

They actually have a great product, and they're canceling it? The new ones were kind of expensive already, but every app supported it and it was very nice

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 24 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Maybe they’re coming out with something new and more expensive, or they’ve entered a licensing deal with another -cast-able company so they can charge you or get licensing fees without the manufacturing overhead.

Or maybe they’re just being Google and cancelling yet another thing that people like to use.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] exanime@lemmy.world 28 points 4 months ago (5 children)

This is why I'd never invest in anything Google.

It's already rolling the dice to see if they enshitify things fast enough to ruin it for me, but now you know they will just kill whatever you have been using on a whim

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] redhorsejacket@lemmy.world 27 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Hmm, so, last month I began to have issues with my Chromecast for the first time. I have an old 3rd gen Chromecast attached to my bedroom television (not a smart tv) for the purpose of casting obnoxiously long video essays to fall asleep to. After like a decade of essentially hassle free operation, it suddenly stopped being able to maintain a connection to my phone. I cast a video, and after approximately 10 minutes, the cast disconnects and I get a message on my phone saying "this video cannot be played in the background". I've tried ever troubleshooting technique I can think of.

I know I shouldn't attribute to malice what can be explained by other causes, but boy, seeing this news today sure makes me think about things like planned obsolescence.

[–] BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.world 24 points 4 months ago

Planned obsolescence is built into googles processes.

They've created an environment where your primary method of advancing in your career is only creating new things and there's little to no options when choosing to support existing things. Some things have survived by chance and/or something to keep employees busy, but it's unintentional.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Wrench@lemmy.world 27 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

It didn't have planned obsolescence in it. People bought the 3 devices they needed for their house, and have been coasting off them for a decade. Maybe with the occasional refresh for 4k or a worn out USB port or whatever.

Just corporate greed on display here. People stopped buying them because the product was simple and did what it was supposed to for a long time. Gotta enshitify it so we see those $$$ roll in again.

Edit - they also probably thought it would be a revenue stream for buying videos through Google or get their cut from some android app, but people instead watched their media from sources outside their pay umbrella

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Mio@feddit.nu 22 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Ok. Can someone please update https://killedbygoogle.com/ with this and increase the counter with +1?

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›