I've unplugged mine too but saying it's spying is mincing words a bit.

I highly doubt they care what individuals say in their home but probably care a lot more about what your demographic talks about, watches on TV, listens to on the radio and any other data they can glean from sound.

Think about it, distinct actions make certain sounds, (i.e. from washing dishes to sleeping)

They probably have a lot more of a complete picture of your home than you realise.

I am with you on this. Google sent me a free Google Home Mini a few months ago and I have an Amazon echo device. I sometimes like to experiment with both devices. I plug them in, use them, then unplug them.

Interesting technology, but I would rather have everything on hardware and software that I control.

I have a big cognitive dissonance here of what led you to buy it in the first place? The gulf of knowledge or personal risk tolerance between those 2 stances is so vast that I can scarcely comprehend them being in 1 person.

But, clearly they are so I'm obviously wrong.