During the company's earnings a few weeks ago, Jeff Bezos noted that a lot of its recent growth was due to increased Alexa take-up ("We've reached an important point where other companies and developers are accelerating adoption of Alexa,") and a boom in Prime membership. Amazon saw more new paid members join last year than in any previous year. That explains why it can afford to splash out on action shows -- and Superbowl ads to promote them.

I've missed out on the escape room wave until now, so I took along seasoned escape room... escaper Cherlynn Low to ensure I didn't screw it up. "It's kinda small," she scoffed. It was also kind of classy: all strip lighting and steel fittings. Oh, and filled of Amazon's range of smart devices (Echo Spot, Echo Show and good ole original flavor Echo). Hopefully, Amazon doesn't shoehorn quite as many product placements into the Jack Ryan show itself.