Let me ask this question. Why can Netflix make a decent tv app and Amazon cannot?

majormajor 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Lots of companies can make decent apps. And IMO the Prime Video TV/Mobile and Amazon mobile apps are "decent" from a "they do what they're trying to do" standpoint and don't fail all the time.

But they don't really think about things from a "consumer who wants to watch something tonight" vs "shopper who we want to get money from" perspective. So the Prime Video app has been painful to navigate and use. Things like concepts of how people want to interact with TV shows - one top level entry with seasons in it, vs top-level entries per season, which took them forever to change - reflect quick and dirty shoveling of concepts over from how they'd sell box sets or such vs thinking about it from a user-first POV. Or how search will return a match for just about anything because they will happily sell it to you vs having as a default "show any free results first because I'm not looking to spend more right now."

That's a product/vision failure (or just mismatch with what you and I want) not an engineering/engineering culture thing.

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artyom 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is really easy to answer, with some perspective from the inside, but mostly from public information:

- Amazon has 3 main business lines ("orgs"): Ecommerce, AWS and devices.

- Ecommerce and AWS are (now) cash cows. Devices bleeds money. TV falls into the devices organization.

- Devices was a Bezos bet. Current Amazon couldn't care less honestly.

- The devices organization is (today, after layoffs and people leaving in droves) essentially full of incompetent people, where all the leftovers of the other two orgs end up.

- It's people that was hired to build structure with the sole purpose of some higher-up promotion. They never served any other purpose, neither they have any particularly sophisticated skill.

- That's the people that makes the TV app.

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mikert89 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

amazon has mediocre quality talent that they grind to the bone. which worked when the company just needed raw execution. amazon has an operations culture, which was important for:

1. scaling retail

2. keeping the servers running at AWS

all the low hanging fruit has been picked, they need a fundamentally different employee base

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spwa4 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> all the low hanging fruit has been picked, they need a fundamentally different employee base

As anyone in software development can tell you, this does not compute. You cannot do things this way, and any experienced software engineer can tell you it doesn't work.

Besides, it's not how Amazon worked at all. Amazon is famous for having systematically verified ("mathematically proved") how it's core systems operated. Whereas, for example Google only did that in redesigns when the systems had already collapsed once or twice due to scale, not from early on. And even that is superior to how Microsoft or Oracle did it: they bought Google employees and had them design an iteration of what Google is running (yes, is running, not was running. Google redesigned it's core systems ... and then mostly didn't migrate. Borg was never replaced with Omega and the main large system that they migrated to is Spanner. Kubernetes isn't Borg. Kubernetes grew out of Borg's successor. Except Google never migrated away from Borg)

https://cacm.acm.org/practice/systems-correctness-practices-...

I'm sure Amazon had entire departments, much larger than core engineering, just like every other company, where it looked like everything was operationally focused. That doesn't mean core engineering doesn't exist, or does nothing.

	▲	vineyardmike 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Publishing a paper (in 2025) about formal verification is miles different than implementing it company wide. Anyone who has talked to an Amazonian SWE knows they’re not building their systems like this. The Amazon way is to quickly grind something out, and build on as many layers of AWS abstractions as possible. They’re famous for the hustle and grind not the stellar engineering acumen of formal verification.

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SoftTalker 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

TV is Netflix's core competency. It's a sideline at best for Amazon.

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alephnerd 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Amazon Prime Video isn't targeting the US market anymore - they made a hard pivot to India [0][1][2], and as such are primarily investing in MX Player.

[0] - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/apo...

[1] - https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/prime-video-india-growth-pa...

[2] - https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/prime-video-india-content-c...

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pityJuke 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Wait, when the fuck did the Android app I used to play on-device videos with become a streaming app, that then got acquired by Amazon?!

(I know the literal answer is on Wikipedia, but I’m flabbergasted.)

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alephnerd 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Back in 2018-19 because their founder Karan Bedi was smart and recognized he could leverage his past corporate experience in Big Media in India in order to make MX Player a streaming platform targeting India2 and India3, and thus build a scalable business.

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selimthegrim 3 hours ago | parent [-]

2nd and 3rd tier cities?

	▲	alephnerd 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yep!