Our daughters bought my DH an Alexa. We think she's hilarious though it has given my DH ideas about addressing females in a lordly tone.
We don't pay a subscription but apparently you get more services if you do. We use her for music, traffic information, weather and general queries such as capital cities, spelling, population figures and other random bits and pieces. I've learnt a few things through this thread, thank you, I enjoyed the Advent Calendar and checked my 12 times table!!