I’m not sure if that’s really the deciding factor — here, in privacy-aware (you could say ‘paranoid’) Germany, businesses coming to where you have private conversations is not seen as positively.

There is, however, another aspect of chat as an interface, which is a huge improvement over installing an app: it requires almost zero resource investment from the user. You as the consumer need not adapt to anything, provide any investment of resources, screen space, time — the interface has to adapt to you.

For me, and I think many of my paranoid fellow Germans, this may very well overpower their privacy concerns. We’ll see though, most people I’ve talked to said they would never have an Amazon Echo that continuously listens to their conversations.