I think part of their documentation said that you can skip that part, if you want. Ah, found it. Their github Readme has a section titled "Using Mycroft Without Home": https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-core#using-mycroft-with...
Apparently, various groups are using some open speech engines (CMUSphinx and Kaldi) to work on internationalization support: https://community.mycroft.ai/t/are-there-any-plans-to-move-f...
> Privacy...not attained.
> I shouldn't have to ask Google to open a local file for me.
I agree.