Amazon Prime Is One of the Most Bizarre Good Business Ideas Ever

Ten years ago this month, Jeff Bezos announced Amazon Prime to the world. "It's simple," he wrote in a letter posted to Amazon.com. "For a flat annual membership fee, you get unlimited two-day shipping for free." It's funny to look back and see how Bezos baked a little marketing sleight-of-hand right into the product launch-the shipping is not really free, after all, if you're paying a fee. But one piece of what Bezos promised has held true for the past decade: For customers, Prime turns out to be dead simple.