Like Vixie said, route and answer 8.8.8.8. He is complaining that he has to do it. He is not saying that there is no solution.
Putting a DNS client in Chrome (I think they removed it but who knows), or Chromecast, or whatever is "evolutionary pressure".
It forces users to evolve the solution to work around it. This is good.
If users are forced to learn to use an RPi for DNS (and we can see they are doing that with Pi-Hole), and eventually another pocket-sized computer with open-source software for routing, that benefits the community of users who want to avoid ads.
If avoiding ads is the goal, then using a pocket-sized computer with a user-installed OS is better than a solution marketed by a commercial third-party, as almost always those third parties rely partially/wholly/directly/indirectly on the ad business.
I don't understand Vixie. I have a Chromecast Ultra. On my Firewall at all, I reject all requests to 8.8.8.8(and .4.4) with a ICMP unreachable. This forces the CC Ultra to use the DHCP allocated DNS Server (a pihole) which works just fine.
I don't understand why he says you have to route and answer 8.8.8.8. You really don't.
If his point is you can't override the built in DNS without some sort of FW hackery though, then yea his point stands.
How about Roku, AppleTV, Amazon Fire whatever? (I do not know all the correct brand names but I am presuming other companies are trying to hardcode DNS servers too.)
I don't own any of those.
But given those devices don't have ties to Google, I doubt they're trying to force people to use their own DNS. I don't even think Roku, Apple or Amazon run public DNS servers.
Putting a DNS client in Chrome (I think they removed it but who knows), or Chromecast, or whatever is "evolutionary pressure".
It forces users to evolve the solution to work around it. This is good.
If users are forced to learn to use an RPi for DNS (and we can see they are doing that with Pi-Hole), and eventually another pocket-sized computer with open-source software for routing, that benefits the community of users who want to avoid ads.
If avoiding ads is the goal, then using a pocket-sized computer with a user-installed OS is better than a solution marketed by a commercial third-party, as almost always those third parties rely partially/wholly/directly/indirectly on the ad business.