Can't YouTube serve up the videos in formats that the original Chromecasts can consume? Surely either YouTube can know which Chromecast is making the request, and serve up an appropriate quality, or allow the Chromecast to request a lower quality version of the video. To be clear, I don't expect to be able to see videos in higher quality than was available at the time of purchase. I expect to be able to 'watch YouTube' as was advertised on the device's box.
This infuriates me. Google must know about this, and can surely lower the bitrate for these old Chromecasts, yet have chosen not to. Every time I encounter this on my old Chromecasts it reminds me of how they ruined the Nexus 7 with its final major os update. Blatantly trying to get people to buy new devices. Do no evil, my arse.
Here in Australia most people now buy food and drink by tapping their bank cards on a reader. Can't be long now until a particularly smart crow sees this at a beach side shop, and steals a card to copy this. Is a shopkeeper obligated to serve other species? I for one will welcome our new flying thief overlords.
Reddit doesn't require an email either - they just use a dark pattern on the registration popup to somewhat hide the fact. I doubt any bot makers fall for it, so I don't think they did it to prevent bots anyway.