I actually just bought a current gen Chromecast because I was looking for a "plug it in so I can watch YouTube on my TV" device similar to the Gen1 and was also dismayed at being forced to register/log in with a Google account and go through all of the hoops. I wish I had done more research and had I known that current Chromecasts are basically just a thin proxy of the exact same "Google TV OS" that ships on a lot of current smart TVs I would have paid the premium to buy a Nvidia Shield or something