On a side note: the difficulty in blocking ads has shown me how much control I have lost over my devices.
I have zero interest in using apps, I just want to cast stuff from my phone. My old (non-4k) chromecast switched to the correct htmi input and started the TV when I started casting to it. The new white one doesn't even show a stream if you cast to it when in the "app" interface which is its default interface.
Instead you have to use the remote and leave the app interface first (go "out" to the photo/clock/screensaver interface which was default on older ChromeCasts), and only then you can cast to it? Am I misunderstanding something? Is there a configuration option to just make it a "dumb but 4k" chromecast, i.e. so that it boots up in the mode that accepts streaming?
I think it's a combination of Google having a pretty strong security team (so there aren't many exploits), and geeks not really wanting to use Google stuff anymore.