When Transparent won two Emmys, the talk was quite rightly about what it meant for growing visibility and acceptance of transgender Americans. Yet there was another cultural shift at work, too. Amazon Prime, a streaming video service that only started offering original content in 2013, had just won two of the biggest prizes in TV; more Emmys than every broadcast network save one (it tied with ABC), and one more than cable TV’s reigning home of prestige television, AMC. This is the year that streaming television finally came of age – and my, how it’s grown.

Just think of everything that’s happened this year. Netflix launched quality dramas like Narcos and Bloodline and even released its first original movie, Beasts of No Nation, in cinemas. It created the genre-busting comedy Master of None and turned Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, one of NBC’s cast-offs, into one of the buzziest shows of the year.

Hulu went from being the warehouse for network reruns to making original series like the critically adored Difficult People and a resuscitation of Fox’s The Mindy Project. Amazon had an uneven year with its new crop of shows, like the god-awful Hand of God and better-but-not-brilliant Red Oaks, but, hey, they won two Emmys and Transparent is returning before the year’s over. Even Sony’s Crackle, which most people don’t even know exists, is getting serious about original programming.

The dominance of the steaming services will be underlined on Friday, when both Netflix and Amazon debut new shows. Marvel’s Jessica Jones is the second of the comic book company’s five series slated to launch on Netflix. Considering that Disney owns both Marvel and ABC, it says something that the company wants to be in business with Silicon Valley and not just Hollywood.

On the same day, Amazon will drop The Man in the High Castle, a big-budget action series about what life would be like if the Nazis had won the second world war. Critics have admired the previews and everyone’s (least) favorite purveyor of online goods is mounting a gigantic marketing campaign. Both of these things were completely unimaginable even three years ago.

But we’re not just talking about Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu. This year also saw the launch of HBO Now, the streaming service that lets people without a cable subscription watch Game of Thrones whenever and wherever they want (let’s just all agree not to mention that it also comes with True Detective season two). Showtime has its own streaming app and is now available as an add-on with Hulu. CBS got in on the game with the poorly named CBS All Access. NBC is finding out whether people will pay $4 a month for comedy with its service SeeSo, which starts a free trial in December. AMC got spooky with Shudder, an all-horror service.

Even these network-based services are starting to get serious about original content. At the beginning of this year, Amazon wooed Woody Allen away from the cinema for the first time, but was trumped at the end of this year when HBO landed the next phase of Jon Stewart’s career, where he’ll make digital shorts for HBO Now. CBS proved it’s not messing around when it announced a new Star Trek series would play only on CBS All Access (seriously, can’t we get this a new name?). They’re boldly going where no network has gone before.

Well, not really. Late to the game and desperate to keep up, the networks are doing whatever they can to catch up. This summer, NBC pulled a Netflix and made all of the episodes of its Charles Manson murder mystery Aquarius available at the same time on their website while still airing them sequentially on television. It didn’t have a huge impact on either format, but NBC ordered another season.

Competition is heating up between the streaming services as well, and not just for Emmys. When Netflix landed a huge deal for the Friends back catalogue, Hulu answered by purchasing all the old Seinfeld episodes. Amazon is so worried about ruining its relationship with CBS that it ordered streaming rights to its summer shows through 2018.

While deals like this might be getting more common, it’s still the experimentation with form, content, and ideas that are really making streaming television thrive. While broadcast television doubles down on the same old formats, resulting in the least-watched fall seasons on record, streaming seems vital and innovative. Before long they’re not just going to be winning more Emmys than traditional broadcasters, but also a central place in pop culture.