This is CIY - cobble it yourself.

That's a fantastic description. Never seen it before. I'm a data scientist. Some of my projects are DIY and some of them just consist of writing code to link data with existing models and I might start using "CIY" to describe them.

I was thinking the same thing. If it was all localized to a Pi then yes, but outside services isn't really DIY so much. Maybe half DIY if such a thing.

On the other hand, I would tend to agree that this project is a "DIY Alexa" (edit to add: in the minds of most readers of Instructables website): https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Amazon-Alexa/

This is another example of what the GP comment is complaining about. It's not a DIY Alexa. Alexa is the virtual assistant API. This is a DIY Amazon Echo that still relies on the Alexa service.

As an engineer and a technologist, I agree that you and GP are precisely correct.

If you showed it to and asked a string of randoms off the street, I think way more than half would agree with the "DIY Alexa" label as reasonably communicative description and more useful than a longer but more precise title.

Yeah, that's a good point. It's easy to get caught up in our little tech bubble :)