I don’t think Chromecast will fail from Googles point of view. They want to drive people to YouTube and Chromecat does that.
But look at today’s Smart TVs. That can do what Chromecast can do but most if not all require the use of a wireless keyboard to really be efficient. Not too many folks are going to do that.
So what will happen to Chromecast as we go forward? My prediction:
Short run: a huge success. At least 10s of millions sold.
Long run: Smart TVs wiil start working with your iPad or IPhone and do exactly want the Chromecast does now. That should be no more than a tear or two away.
There’s not any real loss in efficiency using the remote over the keyboard. Sure maybe it takes twice as long to put in the characters, but big deal. With active search that they all use you’re not putting in more than 12 characters anyway, so you’re talking 10 seconds to get those characters in instead of 5. That’s just not a change. And of course if the person doesn’t have a smartphone or tablet then they’re still remote driving.
Because it’s only $35 I see a lot of people buying it now. But by next year most won’t even be using it, kind of like Wiis. Smart TVs already can get content from iPads and iPhones, they’re on you network and can get shared content from other things on your network, and even if that doesn’t work half the iToys/ clones have HDMI output so you can always jack in directly.