19 Aug Prime Video Is Finally Becoming the Amazon of Streaming [Puck$]
By Julia Alexander
August 19, 2026| For most of its early history, Amazon Prime Video’s strategy followed the general arc of the streaming wars. It started with an original slate heavy on late Obama-era dramedy quirk: Transparent, Mozart in the Jungle, a period piece about ’60s newsmagazines, etcetera. Then came the blockbuster era: a very expensive detour into Tolkien high fantasy, Citadel, and the rights to Thursday Night Football. But lately, Amazon’s been forging a new path in streaming under a deceptively simple premise: What if Prime Video just becomes the… Amazon of streaming?
Under Jeff Bezos, Amazon built its retail empire on a bottomless well of products, delivered on demand, and an equally endless scroll of algorithmic recommendations. It is, as Bezos famously said, “the everything store”—a discount clearinghouse for all conceivable needs. With Prime, Amazon further incentivized shopping for whatever, whenever, by removing all shipping fees, creating a subscription business with extraordinarily low churn. Amazon’s Prime Video Channels, its marketplace that allows Prime members to add additional streaming services to their account, aims to create that same frictionless access to, well, everything.
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