You can be upset about an aspect of a product, and seek to change that aspect, without abandoning use of the product. For example, 1.3 million people are killed by cars every year, and while we recognize the risk, we also constantly improve them through safety regulations, training and improved technology. Just because people use cell phones and apps today doesn't mean we're okay with the downsides and should stop trying to improving them.
> Customers are not sending all their generated power out their meter, then putting load on the "grid" on another meter back in. That would indeed be absurd.
That is exactly what the linked article claims is happening to TVA customers: "Thus, any grid-tied solar system within the TVA region must have dual metering, one to measure power coming off the grid, another to measure power going to the grid. The arrangement with TVA is likewise “buy all, sell all” in that you have no choice but to sell all the power you generate to TVA, then you buy back whatever you actually consume."
As others are posting here, the Echo is obvious about when it's recording: when the onboard hardware detects the wake-word, the LED rings light up blue and it begins streaming audio to Amazon until the Alexa service determines that the query has been completed or that there's nothing more to hear. People have monitored the network activity of their Echoes to verify this (and if you don't trust that, well, nothing I say will help you.)
Sometimes the wake-word detection is mistakenly triggered and some unrelated audio gets streamed to Amazon, but the LEDs will still light up, and at times it'll even reply to a query that was never intended (I've been watching TV when my Echo will hear something and reply that I don't have any timers set, or whatever) but these recordings would still be covered by the link I pasted in the help text above.
I think a lot of the HN paranoia about these devices is overblown. All of this functionality is provided by devices that you already own, including hardware wake-word detection on all modern smartphones, which I assume everyone here carries around everywhere and recharges daily without much concern.
I think you may be making a distinction where none exists. Can you give me an example of what "other stuff" you're referring to? (Disclosure: I worked at Amazon on a related product.)
No need for speculation: you can open the Alexa app and play back your own queries, audio and all. There's even a help section titled, "How do I delete Alexa voice recordings", which reads:
"You can delete specific voice recordings associated with your account by going to History in Settings in the Alexa App, drilling down for a specific entry, and then tapping the delete button. Or, you can delete all voice recordings associated with your account for each of your Alexa-enabled products, by selecting the applicable product at the Manage Your Content and Devices page at www.amazon.com/mycd or contacting customer service."
While I agree that TVs don't go obsolete after one year, obsolete doesn't mean "broken" or "no longer works", it just means that the item is outdated or outmoded and generally no longer used. Ball mice, for example, are obsolete but would still work if plugged into a computer.