Google upgrades Chromecast as Disney Plus announces a price hike

It’s the weekend, meaning it’s once again time for us to name our winner and loser of the week. 

This week saw Samsung all but confirm the existence of the Galaxy S24 FE with a live support page appearing on its official French website, while Sonos announced that it would be delaying the launch of two new products to prioritise fixing its broken app. 

Google, meanwhile, found itself in hot water when a US court ruled Google Search an anti-competitive monopoly in a major anti-trust ruling – a decision Google reportedly plans to appeal. 

Keep reading to learn who we named our winner and loser this week. 

Winner: Google 

Despite the court ruling regarding Google Search, Google remains our winner this week after the company announced a major refresh to its Chromecast line of streaming devices. 

In fact, a refresh might be an understatement as Google is dropping the “Chromecast” name entirely, beginning with the launch of the new Google TV Streamer 4K. 

Compared to the outgoing Chromecast with Google TV, the TV Streamer 4K packs a 22% faster processor, twice the memory and twice the storage. The device takes advantage of Google’s Gemini GenAI tools baked through, allowing you to make complex requests and receive summaries and recommendations from the AI assistant. 

The Streamer 4K also features an all-new design, voice remote and it supports the Matter smart home standard with a Thread border router, enabling smart home devices to work together faster and more reliably. Meanwhile, the Google Home panel lets users check cameras, adjust lights and tweak the temperature from the remote without closing what they’re watching. 

While this is exciting news for new users, it might leave current Chromecast owners worried about losing support for their devices in the near future. Thankfully, Google has assured those users that nothing will change in regard to their Chromecast devices and that they will continue to receive software and security updates. 

Loser: Disney Plus

This week’s loser is Disney Plus, as the streaming service announced yet another price hike in the US. 

From October 17, the price of Disney Plus with ads will increase from $7.99/month to $9.99/month, while the ad-free tier will rise from $13.99/month to $15.99/month. 

This will be Disney’s fifth annual price hike since the service launched in 2019, with the ad-free plan originally costing just $6.99/month at launch. This means that the cost of using Disney Plus has more than doubled since the service launched less than five years ago. 

While this price hike has only been announced in the US so far, we don’t expect it to be long before Disney confirms the change in other markets. Typically, the UK and Europe receive the same treatment from Disney Plus a little further down the line. 

As if this wasn’t bad enough, Disney CEO Bob Iger recently promised investors that the company’s crackdown on password sharing would hit full speed in September. 

“We started our password sharing initiative in June”, said Iger in an earnings call on Tuesday (via Seeking Alpha). “That kicks in, in earnest in September. By the way, we’ve had no backlash at all to the notifications that have gone out and to the work that we’ve already been doing”. 

This means that anyone sharing an account can expect an even more substantial price increase if Disney catches on and forces them to pay their own subscription fee to keep streaming.