Amazon Instant Video usage up only 350% since 2011

Amazon’s Instant Video service has grown 350 percent since 2011, the company said today at its mystery media event in New York.

While that stat may seem large at first glance, it’s relatively insignificant. It’s ridiculous to compare growth from 2011 — the ancient times of streaming video — to today. Every major streaming video service needed to grow by at least that much since 2011 simply to survive.

For a bit of context, take a look at these recent stats from eMarketer: The firm claims “there were 186.2 million digital video viewers in the U.S. in 2013, an 8.5 percent increase from 2012.” eMarketer predicts that “digital video viewers” will grow by another 4.5 percent to 194.5 million users.

Criticizing its competition at the event, Amazon claims Apple, Netflix, and others provide poor search features, slow streaming capabilities, and a closed (limited) ecosystem. Amazon’s new Kindle Fire TV device — announced just minutes ago at this morning’s media event — aims to resolve these shortcomings.