I've honestly like my Chromecast as I can watch legally obtained media and pirated media on the same box. VLC also has native support for streaming to Chromecast. I remember it was a pain to setup for some reason, but I haven't had many issues since then.
And now you can’t even buy a chromecast workout an always on microphone. It’s like Google is doing a mass advertising campaign that says “please get off our platform and pirate everything”