I've never had a "smart" speaker or a "smart" display or a "smart" fridge and the only "smart" TV I've had has been intentionally not connected to the Internet. I have got a Nest and a "smart" washing machine and dryer. Some random thoughts:
1. I've literally never wanted a cloud-connected always-on microphone in my home and I'm surprised anyone does;
2. All of the home automation software is awful, bar none. The only thing it's going to impact in society is being the source of future DDoS attacks most likely. Every time I've tried to use it I'm met with unhelpful error messages, networking software that can't get a DHCP IP address or a million other faults. Or the hardware is just deprecated in favor of the newest, shiniest softare or API (I'm looking at you, Google Matter);
3. "Smart" displays are probably most akin to "smart" TVs. No good comes from connecting TVs to the Internet. It's just uploading data about your viewing habits to sell as well as inserting ads. Some TVs get pretty aggressive about this too. I've heard tales of them trying to find an open network. If any TV did that to me I'd put a drill through the Wifi chip. But "smart" displays have to be connected to the Internet. I have no control over such a device so I'll simply never get one.
I understand that you’re referring to major vendor software, but Home Assistant is pretty decent, if not amazing. Try it out, check the success stories; it’s mind blowing what you can do with it.
1. I've literally never wanted a cloud-connected always-on microphone in my home and I'm surprised anyone does;
2. All of the home automation software is awful, bar none. The only thing it's going to impact in society is being the source of future DDoS attacks most likely. Every time I've tried to use it I'm met with unhelpful error messages, networking software that can't get a DHCP IP address or a million other faults. Or the hardware is just deprecated in favor of the newest, shiniest softare or API (I'm looking at you, Google Matter);
3. "Smart" displays are probably most akin to "smart" TVs. No good comes from connecting TVs to the Internet. It's just uploading data about your viewing habits to sell as well as inserting ads. Some TVs get pretty aggressive about this too. I've heard tales of them trying to find an open network. If any TV did that to me I'd put a drill through the Wifi chip. But "smart" displays have to be connected to the Internet. I have no control over such a device so I'll simply never get one.
I honestly don't know who buys this stuff.