Doubtful they sell at a profit. But do they allow developers for their apps (or whatever they're called, skills I think) to charge money and then take a cut just like any other app store?

I'd imagine like any other new product, they're taking a risk and hoping the product takes off with higher adoption so they can earn more. The bet on Alexa always seemed to be that people wanted a hands-off, voice powered way to interact with the internet, and perhaps they could charge for skills (creating their own 'app store') at some point, or earn more on selling products on Amazon because people would enjoy the convenience of just asking their device to buy more detergent or whatever. Not sure I ever really got the premise here, because it was always quite easy to order stuff on my computer or phone.

Anyway, I don't work at Amazon so I'm not sure if I'm mistaken about what the idea was. I imagine only some people close to that division would really know.