I personally think any battle to prevent widespread adoption or use of always-on listening devices is fruitless. The only option is to provide safer alternative

I personally think any battle to prevent widespread adoption or use of always-on listening devices is fruitless. The only option is to provide safer alternatives with the same functionality. My opinion is that the proper way to deal with the privacy implications of this are to come up with better alternatives - open-source voice assistants and entire ecosystems that do everything locally and that are easy to setup by Joe Shmoe. More in-depth auditing by security experts to see exactly what data is being sent from these devices back to their servers. Privacy laws that will take a company down and send people to jail when violated. Encryption on everything that can feasibly be encrypted. The truth is that I have succumbed to the utility of my Google Home (and the enormous amount of fun I get from having it interface with Home Assistant), but I'd like to be a part of whatever the front line is in making sure these are as privacy-conscious as possible.