Alexa is an important tool for our family. My hope is amazon doesn't abandon Alex, but limit what it does and charge a subscription. We use it for alarms, timers, drop ins (inside home and outside), announcements, weather, news, music on Amazon prime and making calls. Simple things that don't require add on skills or advanced commands. Works solid for our needs and it would be difficult to replace. We never buy anything using voice commands.

The problem is a family like us. We haven't bought a new device in 2 years and still use some of the original pucks. Amazon will need to make money somehow so I think a yearly subscription would work. Then again, if it isn't a growth segment I cannot see a tech company keeping something in today's world.