Smart Home, Always Listening Devices and Privacy

I've held off on smart home devices for awhile, well except for the useless Dash Wand, but I bit the bullet and went for two Echo Shows for a new house (Nest, a few smart plugs/utilities, etc.), and I'm already seeing the potential. It's just so useful for so many things I typically do. I actually hate using my phone often and sitting in the kitchen with the ability to cook, turn on a timer, and manage a playlist is just ridiculous.

I mean, reading calendars and flash briefing, looking up stuff. I even like the more fun things like this day in history. The Show as a bluetooth speaker, nice rotating picture frame, etc. It really is insanely useful, and that's only over the course of 4 days....

However, the whole privacy thing is bugging me a little at least. I don't have everything connected to the Show, nor will I. But a mic, a camera, just dang. And I'm usually pretty hesitant to adopt newish technology like this.

Am I out of line? Anyone else with Echo/GHome worried that much? I mean, there's convenience....then there's CONVENIENCE. Sure, I could use a tuner radio to play music, a ticking timer to time stuff while I cook, and turn on the TV to get the weather, but yeah no.

At this point, and my reasoning for jumping in, was that The only way to truly avoid privacy/security concerns is to live in an unconnected house in the woods far away from society. It seems data collectin is so good that there is little difference from a laptop that is open 90% of the time along with a phone to something like an Echo or Home. The difference just can't be that large (I know i should have, but I never jumped on the tape on webcam movement, that just seems so minor, honestly.

Anyone else fighting the privacy vs. convenience trap.