“and as far as I know, they’ve never been profitable. Most peculiar.”
Well, you pay taxes on profits. If you work your books so that you never profit, you don’t pay taxes.
Back to Alexa- I would not want a cloud-connected box that listens to every word spoken within range, waiting for a command. Alexa, some TV sets, other devices stream out all that they hear to...somewhere.
Our new LGE TV has a microphone in the remote that can be used for all sorts of cool voice stuff. But to activate it you have to agree to some legalese. So we don’t use it.
We also have something placed in front of the camera, “just in case”.