I think Amazon take it less seriously than some of the others. For Netflix, streaming is their entire business. For Disney, HBO and Hulu, it’s the future - they’d probably rather stick with the old school cable TV, movie theatres, etc. model, but they can see the writing on the wall, and they aren’t going to let streaming take them down. But for Amazon ... it’s more just a perk to package with Prime shipping. They want it to be solid, but it’s always going to be very small for them compared to e-commerce, AWS and their platform for 3rd party sellers, fulfilment, etc. Prime Video revenue is similar for them to their co-branded credit cards, I think?

I actually think they have some great content, and a pretty decent app. Their “originals” especially are pretty great - Fleabag, the Boys, the Expanse, all excellent. But yeah, the quality of the app is a bit lower than some of the others, and they have a lot less content than Netflix, because Prime is really not a main focus of their company, more of a nice add-on.

Funny you mention this - my "smart" TV (Vizio) had a recent software that made it so opening Prime Video crashes the whole smart-OS (no home menu and no apps)... with the exception of Netflix's app, which works flawlessly.

I assume Netflix ships a much lower level integration that doesn't rely on nearly as many of the TV OS's api's and therefore can launch even when Prime has decided to bork the whole system.

I agree with this (Haven't tried HBO though).

Disney streaming is pretty good, but the UI isn't as good as Netflix for use across the room. Why do they make the title cards have second level text that is so small it can't be read, and then not have the continually updated preview that Netflix does?

I agree Amazon is pretty disappointing. It seems more like a dodgy pirate video player than a major competitor.

I can't even use the Prime Video apps, because they all ignore all language settings (both those of my devices and my Amazon account) and pick which language to use based on IP Geolocation.

There's a setting for language on the web, but it only affects web.

In my case I'm a foreigner who is still learning the local language, but it must be a real nuisance for people in multilingual countries like Belgium or Switzerland where I guess it would just go "oh, Swiss IP, I guess you want German then".

My experience with Disney has been as good or better than Netflix. Hulu, OTOH, is a disaster. I have a grandfathered Spotify/Hulu plan that basically makes Hulu free so I keep it around but it's my option of last resort.

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but Prime Video's Chromecast integration is just terrible.

Still better than actually using a fire stick directly. At least the UI latency on the phone is bearable. My, admitedly old, fire sticks have input latency measurable in seconds.

The firestick remote replacement app (because I can't ever find the actual remote) is also a joke: it disconnects all the time, fails to reconnect and it is generally not very usable.