Re: Nothing new...
"The risks of them being caught are pretty much 100% (traffic analysis, insider leaks)"
Nope, it's more like 0%.
Everything it sends is encrypted and you can bet there's only handful of people in Amazon who knows exactly what is sent/received. And they won't talk because of NDAs.
So the argument about "trust" is basically null and void: There's literally nothing at all which would justify trusting Amazon.
"It's just a toy, pure and simple."
It's not pure or simple at all: Alexa records and sends everything spoken to Amazon "for analysis" and you can bet that data is sold immediately to advertises.
Too many "coincidences" happening for that not being a proven fact and Amazon claiming it doesn't happen (without opening any of the traffic of course) is just BS: They lie anything to keep the revenue got from selling that data.