Hmmm.,,,, The article is pure speculation but it's still interesting
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From the article:
There's also good news for those who won't want to pay, the existing Alexa experience won't be ditched entirely. It will remain free to use, with only the enhanced version being moved behind a paywall.
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Let’s keep the profanity out of the forum.
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Nothing is free, everyone needs to eat. If they cannot sell products to you, or your data to others, then they have to charge. Some are double and tripple dipping by charging you, selling you products, and your data. 
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I'd be happy to pay if the service is worth it. Cheap hardware and no usage fees have gotten an OK product that hasn't progressed much in a couple years. Note that Josh.ai is billed as the "best" home automation voice assistant charges >$600/device and ~$600/year license fees. I doubt Amazon is shooting for that price range.
I replaced all my Alexas with Apple Homepods ... Couldn't be happier..
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You kinda inspired me to do that when you did... Like pushing the lifx bulbs as well... 
Jeff must be running out of money. I also saw an article that said Prime would start showing commercials in their streaming shows starting in 2024, unless you want to pay an extra $3.99/month.
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The day of paying up for free services are upon us. When the geewiz effect wears off and venture capital or "hobby" status at the company winds down services ultimately have to become profitable. Every company has done this some succeed others don't. I am sure Amazon has all the models of what should be free and the value of the paywalled features.
We constantly have these same discussions at work when we purchase some great utilities say Splunk and then after the two years honeymoon the cost of the services upon renewal become apparent because Splunk was operating under venture capital and services were subsidized by that investment stream. Very common practice.
I have tried that with little luck. Seems Siri "hears" as well as Alexa does. Siri is always asking me "who is speaking" when I have voice recognition enabled. Drives me nuts. Short trip.
Does that require the Cloud?
(Sorry for a potentially dumb question.)
I don't care. I am with Google, who charge the companies I like, who I am sure absorb the charges for the services they enjoy from Google. But I don't pay anything, so I'm happy....
Hey.... hang on a minute.... 
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No... Well only for certain voice stuff but they all do that. It also gives you homekit which is 100% local.
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Oh an no personal info collected unlike google and amazon.
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Ugh that will be majorly disappointing. I prefer to stream Netflix, Prime etc to avoid ads. We are relatively lucky in the UK that the ads aren't so obtrusive as they are in the US where there seems to be commercials after the starting credits, before the end credits, banners running along the bottom of the screen and pop ups during the show you're watching, to advertise the season premier/up next of some crap of no interest. It just ruins what you're watching. I don't even know why we have to have a channel logo in the corner of the screen...are we too thick to know what channel we selected!.......
......Rant complete
you were close but the correct fee is $2.99 per month
AMAZON is going to self implode. It's gonna be fun to watch.
It is my understanding that Alexa devices were a pet project of Jeff Bezos. He was willing to lose money on the project to bring more customers into the Amazon fold. Mr. Bezos stepped down as CEO in 2021, so he is no longer in charge of daily business decisions, although he still wields considerable influence on the board of directors.
I saw some figures that the Alexa portion of the business is losing about $10 billion a year as the system is not bringing in as much revenue ongoing as originally anticipated. Selling electronic devices is only profitable if you have a system like cell phones where people want to upgrade every year or two to a new, expensive model. When a cheap Amazon Echo Pop or old 1st gen Echo Dot will do everything an Echo Show 15 will do (with the exception of the display), there is little incentive to upgrade to expensive models.
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I gave up Prime and went back to the 7 seas.... Arrrrgh.
I do the odd Prime free for a month thing they sometimes offer then cancel again. The only Prime that is worth it that I keep is Japan Prime IMHO.
Geoff has also been purposefully driving me insane with his Echo Auto he gave me cheap a while ago...
It would also piss me off if say you said while driving "Alexa, where is the nearest good cafe?" Alexa "That'll be $2.00 before I can answer that."
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