Is Chromecast Google's Trojan Horse For Television?
More than any other big technology company, Google is building for the future, undertaking blue-sky projects like wearable computers and self-driving cars that don’t have an obvious place in today’s world because it believes they’ll be ubiquitous in tomorrow’s.
Chromecast, the new $35 widget that lets you stream web video from your computer or mobile device to your television, isn’t that kind of product. It’s more of a bridge technology, a stopgap measure — a bit of a kludge, really. It’s certainly not the watch-anything-on-any-screen solution we keep hoping will arrive.
And while Google says it’s selling Chromecasts at a profit, at $35 — a cut of which must go to Netflix for the included three months of free membership — the margin can’t be very wide. So why go to the trouble to make a niche product that may well be obsolete in another year or two?
