From the number of people that do say "Hey, Siri", I'd suspect that people do want it. The concept is a nice one. Hands free. Remote control things with your voice. Super convenient by not having to have the device sitting next to you, just within earshot. Not even needing to be a mobile device. Just gizmo somewhere in the room. For non-technical people, it's utterly magic as a concept.
For technical people, it's a privacy nightmare because it doesn't really work as advertised on the tin. The only way they can get it semi working is by pushing the request to the mothership and do processing there rather than locally on device which means privacy is an option. Also, be technically minded, some people developing these systems make more money on data harvesting than any other service, so local only prevents them from that precious data. So the local processing isn't just a technical problem, but one that interferes with their core business. Of course, none of that is advertised on the tin
Maybe not?? Pretty much everyone that I've seen using Siri are most definitely not techy people. I'm far from the echo chamber SV bubble, so I spend more time around non-techy people than techy people.
Seeing how there are more non-techy than techy people, it feels like Apple has reached their target audience. If Apple depended solely on techy people, they'd need another bail out from MS or Googs to stay solvent.
I know a good number of people (mostly older) that don't seem to know that they can hold the power button for Siri. They'll hold their phone up to their face, say “hey siri”, wait for the reply, and then start talking.
For technical people, it's a privacy nightmare because it doesn't really work as advertised on the tin. The only way they can get it semi working is by pushing the request to the mothership and do processing there rather than locally on device which means privacy is an option. Also, be technically minded, some people developing these systems make more money on data harvesting than any other service, so local only prevents them from that precious data. So the local processing isn't just a technical problem, but one that interferes with their core business. Of course, none of that is advertised on the tin