Well, if I needed a reason not to buy a Fire Stick, here it is.
If you can't sell your product without striking down competitor's products, than clearly your competitors have a better product.
If you can't sell your product without striking down competitor's products, than clearly your competitors have a better product.
I also use legal-greyarea services like Put.io, which only work on Chromecast because of how open the ecosystem is.
Before this I used a Boxee Box, which I preferred over the competitors because you could load it full of homebrew (including Put.io).
The Chromecast is most-used HDMI device in my house, because it works with everything I use.
'Put.io may disclose specific contact information when we determine that such disclosure is necessary to comply with law, to cooperate with or seek assistance from law enforcement or to protect the interests or safety of Put.io or other visitors to the site or users of the Services. Also, your contact information may be passed on to a third party in the event of a merger, acquisition, consolidation, divestiture, or a bankruptcy of Put.io.'
I like the fire stick because my kids can use it (they don't have devices to control the chromecast with). I don't like basically everything else about it:
- poor app selection (everything I've ever wanted to use (except Amazon Prime) works on my Chromecast, the Fire stick is only good for Amazon/Netflix content (there's a few other things out there, but not enough to matter). - poor playback: once it gets going, the fire stick is fine, but when it first starts streaming stuff it tends to stutter. This drives me crazy.
And as for practical reasons: I use my Chromecast when the kids run away with the FireTV remote. It's more convienent to use a phone or tablet than it is to find the remote.
Finally, On my TV at the far side of my house, which is not that far, the FireTV can't see my WiFi. I have my AP mounted in the ceiling (POE cable to my switch), with one wall partially between the AP and the TV. Chromecast connects just fine, the FireTV stick does not.
In my experience, Chromecast is a much better product than the FireTV stick.