Ranking The Potential Of Each Streaming Service

Estimated Subscribers – 150m

If Prime Video was a solely a streaming service, it’d probably be in trouble. Though Amazon have attracted plaudits for the likes of The Boys and The Marvellous Ms. Maisel, the vast majority of their originals have been of middling quality.

Upcoming series based on valuable properties like The Lord Of The Rings, The Wheel Of Time and Jack Reacher could tilt the balance, though they could easily end up being as solid yet unspectacular as their Jack Ryan adaptation.

Amazon’s strength lies in their bundling strategy. No matter how often they are criticised for their inhumane labour practices, non-payment of taxes or systematic destruction of the high street, they are the world’s biggest retailer and consumers have become indoctrinated to using them to shop for everything imaginable. By bundling Prime Video with the Prime next-day delivery service, they have a unique offering that nobody else can match, even if only a fraction of their subscribers regularly watch programming.

Amazon’s dominance of the retail market has and will continue to rise. The average user of the site puts more than $1000 into Jeff Bezos’ juggernaut each year, giving it almost free reign to pump as much money as it likes into original and acquired programming alike.

Several ‘alternative’ investments’, such as live Premier League coverage, have also proven a smart move, enabling the gap to be gradually closed upon Netflix, who must rely on programming alone without hundreds of other revenue streams backing them.