A dead product? Absolutely not! We're constantly using Alexa to control lights, check the weather when we dress our kids for school, kitchen timers, getting alerts when a package shows up, etc.

What sucks is everyone expects their voice assistant for free. There's a ton of development time that goes into this stuff.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to charge a monthly fee for Alexa/Siri/whatever. I avoid all ads on all platforms, and literally tell Alexa to go to hell if she tries to sell me a product or service. A small monthly fee would be a fair trade off.