This, way too many people think they know the law and build up a wall of thinking based on their erroneous understanding of it. They're often afraid to incur the perceived expense of consulting an actual expert.
The same kind of broken thinking exists across MANY other aspects of life. Turn up the radio in your car to avoid hearing the problem that would be 'easy' to fix now and instead ignore it until it turns into a considerably more expensive repair.
I find it's often the same people that make these kinds of misguided decisions that crow the loudest about "kill all the lawyers". Perhaps because of their fear of being called out for their ignorance.
We had our 9mo child take 'Infant Swim Rescue' courses, basically anti-drowning lessons. The concern being the waters near us are cloudy and it'd be impossible to see someone if they went under. Classes went well.
At a neighbors party a 2.5yo fell into the pool. I saw it happening and the little girl just SANK LIKE A STONE. With a panicked look on her face. Little feet hit the bottom, let out a blurp of air and did nothing. Her Dad was already in the air diving into the water before I could get up. The child was fine, thankfully. Her folks immediately asked about the classes I'd mentioned before.
I can still see the complete bewilderment on that child's face. She just had NO IDEA what to do and would have drowned had it not been for quick actions.
My point here is lessons are absolutely worth considering starting MUCH earlier than you might guess. This isn't learning to 'swim', it's learning how 'not to drown'.
Look, I know how to make my own candles from tallow (including how to bring down the beast to get the fat). Does that mean using electric lights is lazy?
Of course not.
I have my hands full cooking. Is asking "Alexa, set a potato timer for 12 minutes" any lazier than stopping my stirring the sauce, wiping my hands, picking up the timer and punching buttons on it to set a timer? I can keep going about my tasks and have the Alexa device help. Likewise, "Alexa, turn on dinner table" or "Alexa, announce 'Everybody get down here, dinner is ready'" These are little conveniences that keep a busy process going smoothly.
Could I live without them, sure. But I could live without electric lights and plumbing too. But why would I when they exist and are available at a reasonable expense?
Correction, it keeps a rolling loop going so that when the CPU hears the wake word it has enough audio buffered for voice recognition to have a clean starting point.
If it only started recording when the wake word was processed as being heard there would be an added delay before you could start speaking a command. Might as well push a button and wait for a beep for that added delay.
The Alexa devices don't have the hardware within to do that. People have torn them down and looked. People have also constructed their own devices (rpi with a mic) to mimic the same functionality and it's consuming the same sort of bandwidth.
Now, of course, nothing will ever placate the conspiracy nitwits.
Ah yes, the old "the same people" conspiracy shit. Give it a rest.
Bring up wireshark and watch if you're so certain "they" are doing that. I have. They're not. At least not with the Alexa device I've got.
So maybe instead of spending so much on tinfoil for hats, maybe you should actually TRY some the devices. PROVE there's some actual conspiratorial activities going on.
Well, naming devices for voice control is more tedious than you'd think. You have one device that you named poorly. Try having a house with over 150 devices! Naming matters. Putting a little thought into it makes a big difference in usability.
I've got one that gets used everyday. It's named "Breakfast Table". 'Alexa, turn on Breakfast Table' works quite reliably. Now, am I actually turning on the table? No, of course not, but that rolls off the tongue a lot better than "Alexa, turn off pendant lamp over the breakfast table". Or recessed ceiling cans as opposed to just "living room ceiling". We really don't have many devices with 'lamp' or 'light' as part of their name. Because we're not really asking for control over a light, we're asking for light for an activity at a location.
But there still ends up being a few that are clunky. "Family room endtable" for a reading lamp near that end of the sectional, or 'Family room sofa" for the two on a console table behind the other part. Haven't hit upon better names for those. Activity naming is an option but we really don't call for lighting in a scene oriented kind of way. Some folks seem to like that, go figure.
Bearing in mind with an open floorplan just about everything on a level is within line of sight and earshot. The placing of multiple Alexa devices took a little fine tuning to overcome reflection from lots of wood and drywall surfaces. That allows for unexpected pickup. Oh, the units handle avoiding overlap with each other, but sometimes facing one way in a room leads to the sound being picked up by the one in that direction. As you'd expect sound waves would travel. But without a LOT more intrusive sensors (cameras, motion, position) it's handling things remarkably well just with voice.
The great tragedy is the leap to conclusions people make. "Promise to do".... where? By whom?
Oh, you want a TV cartoon equivalent of Rosie the Robot... we're not there yet. But given the hilariously low price point for these devices, we're getting quite a lot of bang for the buck in the meanwhile.
The same kind of broken thinking exists across MANY other aspects of life. Turn up the radio in your car to avoid hearing the problem that would be 'easy' to fix now and instead ignore it until it turns into a considerably more expensive repair.
I find it's often the same people that make these kinds of misguided decisions that crow the loudest about "kill all the lawyers". Perhaps because of their fear of being called out for their ignorance.