A decent-quality MP3 is 96 kbps; that means that it would take a little over 30 terabytes to store an entire lifetime’s worth of audio, or under 4 terabytes to

A decent-quality MP3 is 96 kbps; that means that it would take a little over 30 terabytes to store an entire lifetime’s worth of audio, or under 4 terabytes to store a decade’s worth (assuming I got the math right). At today’s prices that’s less than $500 to store a lifetime’s worth of audio, less than $50 to store a decade’s. Does anyone doubt that an unethical company could make well over $5/year from storing and analysing every second of audio spoken within earshot of its devices?