If you think that's wild, just wait until you discover how much they pay for having one they can carry around with them!

I have a bunch in my house. It's a glorified radio all I use it for is:

• Set timer for x minute
• What time is it
• Ask CBC to play radio one Toronto
• What is the weather today

For the convenience I accept the mining they may do.

Lists are also very handy!

If anyone else is wondering, I’ve not found a verbatim quote of the steps but I did see an article that mentioned the consequences. It seems like you will be able to turn this off but it will disable Voice ID:

anyone with their Echo device set to “Don’t save recordings” will see their already-purchased devices’ Voice ID feature bricked. Voice ID enables Alexa to do things like share user-specified calendar events, reminders, music, and more. Previously, Amazon has said that "if you choose not to save any voice recordings, Voice ID may not work." As of March 28, broken Voice ID is a guarantee for people who don't let Amazon store their voice recordings.

That is actually good news to hear. Not completely good on my part for being incorrect about ownership, but once I saw the proposed deal back when it was announced, I immediately added them to the “no I don’t think I will.” list of products I won’t support.

Cheers for the clarification mate

You can get them on Amazon.

So is the internet.

Wait till you find out about the internet and social media (including here).

I agree. Although it’s nearly impossible at this point. Especially with Amazon running a significant portion of the internet with AWS. Each one of us most likely touches an Amazon server multiple times a day, even if we don’t have any Amazon subscriptions.

Please, sir I have a pager

Well played.

The whole damn situation was a trap.

That doesn't matter. You only need to worry about boycotting things within your control, like Amazon shopping and their consumer products. AWS is profitable, but so is Amazon.com.

Buying something at a different store is always a dub even if that store is using AWS on the backend.

Alexa! Install Linux!

They create a problem, then sell the solution.

My brother and a buddy both have Alexas. And yeah, I hate being anywhere near the thing.

Like the other person said, you can at least control what you interact with directly. So you cancel your Prime subscription and turn your lights with your hand instead of an Echo but you don’t worry so much about trying to figure out if any of the several companies involved in making [product] have some form of attachment to AWS.

And there will be some level of consumption in this horrible system that’s not gunna be good in order for you to not be horribly depressed but people can shed more than they think and alternatives do exist for many of the ones you might put at lower priority.

These devices are a great help to the elderly and disabled, and Amazon's offerings are the least expensive. My buddies Mom can call emergency services from anywhere in her home with just her voice. I don't think that's foolish at all.

None of my devices have one that's lacking a physical switch to disable it.