In general I think this is a good thing. It makes technology nicer and easier to use for the masses and in a pretty secure way too. In general they don't know how to install extensions in browsers, but they are smart enough to plug something in. The cast stuff is great for those people. It also means that the cable-companies will loose subscribers and that less hd-receiver boxes will end up taking space in the landfill after about one year of subscription. The casts are smaller and will simply have a higher longevity than most other junk.
Also in 10 years, no one will have a cable subscription anymore and we will be much closer to a scifi scenario in which you can push anything from your phone to any screen, everywhere you are. If it requires a closed source ecosystem and some bloat to get there, so be it. At some point in time either Alphabet will provide an API or someone will reverse engineer it.