20 years of Amazon: 20 years of major disruptions

Lindsay Deutsch | USA TODAY Network

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the year Amazon began considering a courier-style delivery system.

In July 1995, Amazon.com sold its first book online, Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies by Douglas Hofstadter. Now you can hop online from your phone, download the e-book version, bid on a vintage couch on which to read it, and hire someone to explain the concepts to you — all with one click.

In its 20 years, Amazon has been at the forefront of innovation, changing the way we shop, buy, read and live. From the sexy (drones) to the unsexy (cloud services), here are some of the major lifestyle disruptions that Amazon and its products have led.

Bookselling: It seems so simple now (or so sinister, a la You've Got Mail) — an online book retailer that would mail you what you needed. But in the mid-'90s, Amazon was the first to break through to the general public. By 1997, Barnes & Noble was suing Amazon for claiming to be "the world's largest bookstore." Alas — in 2014, Amazon sold more than 60% of all books purchased online. And don't forget, RIP Borders.

One-click purchasing: See something you like? Click once and it's on its way! That's the concept Amazon rolled out in September 1997 with its 1-Click purchasing. To the peril of impulse shoppers everywhere, it won a U.S. patent for the practice, and the name, in September 1999.

"The cloud": Did you know that many of your favorite companies (millions) are powered by Amazon Web Services? And it makes bank with it — $1.6 billion in the first three months of 2015. One of the first of its kind in 2006, AWS allows companies to rent storage and processing power instead of paying to build and run their own data centers.

Members only: Amazon Prime was created in 2005, with users paying a flat annual — not monthly — subscription fee for certain perks, including one-day shipping prices. Amazon Instant Video, Prime Music, Prime Photos, Unlimited Cloud Storage and more perks followed. Same-day delivery for Prime members launched in May 2015. It's now estimated to have more than 40 million subscribers — more than Netflix's domestic haul.

The rise of e-reading: Sure, we can all wax nostalgic about old book smell or the weight of a hardback in our hands. But there's something undeniable about an on-demand read that never goes out of stock. Amazon's Kindle was a game-changer for e-reading. Launched in 2007, the Kindle connected book purchasing with book platforms, leading to sensational headlines like "print is dead." And alas — in July 2010, Amazon's Kindle e-book sales outpaced hardcover book sales for the first time.

On fire: The Kindle Fire, launched in September 2011, was a cheap — $199 — version of the flashier Apple counterparts.

New kids on the shelf: If you're selling, why not publish? In 2009, Amazon Publishing took the publishing world by storm, slowly snatching up titles from Big Six publishers Random House, Penguin, Macmillan, Hachette, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Simon & Schuster and becoming quite the tumultuous force in the industry. Now it's based in six cities, composed of 14 imprints and is expected to publish about 1,200 titles this year, according to Publishers Weekly.

Audio takeover: They've got you buying, reading, and now listening to books. Amazon purchased audiobook mainstay Audible for $300 million in 2008, so there's a good chance it's powering all the audio books you'll ever download. (And while we're at it — how about dominate online social books conversation? Amazon purchased Goodreads, the leading social network for book lovers, in March 2013.

Drones (!!): Science fiction became reality in December 2013, when Amazon announced its goals to launch drone delivery. Called Amazon Prime Air, the future delivery system is "designed to safely get packages into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less using small airborne devices.

With love, from robots: For the 2014 holiday rush, Amazon did some extra hiring — of 15,000 robots, that is. Last Christmastime, the company launched a full-scale deployment of a robotic fulfillment system it purchased in 2012 and tested in 2013.

Amazon, throwback edition: A brick-and-mortar Amazon store? Kind of. With a partnership at Purdue University in Indiana, Amazon launched a pick-up store for students on campus in February 2015. Contracts at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and University of California-Davis are in the works, according to the Lafayette Journal & Courier.

Junk in your trunk: Why have things delivered to your house when you could get them delivered right to your car trunk? In April 2015, Amazon launched a partnership with Audi and DHL in Germany to start exploring this service. Three months earlier, the company announced that its Prime members in New York City could get items delivered within an hour for a fee — and within two hours for no fees.

Tasks and more: In March 2015, the company expanded its professional services marketplace, Amazon Local Services. Now you can hire a plumber or, you know, a goat herder, at your digital leisure.

On-demand products: Did Amazon just try to solve the ultimate horror of running out of coffee on an early morning? It may have been announced just in time for April Fools 2015, but Amazon Dash is no joke. Each Dash, a small oval electronic device about the size of a pack of gum, comes emblazoned with the name of a different, frequently used-up, product. One push of the button is a direct line toward ordering via Amazon.

Uber for stuff: Sure, it's no huge innovation — there are tons of start-ups devoted to peer-to-peer delivery models. But Amazon may be the first major retailer exploring an Uber-style courier service with crowd-sourced drivers to cut costs and delivery times. It began considering this option in June 2015. (The company also launched free shipping for "small and light" items under $10 in June.)

Paid library: Amazon knows when you're reading books — not just stocking your Kindles. And it wants to pay the writers that way! On July 1, Amazon will begin compensating authors in its Kindle library program (that self-publish via Amazon's services) by the number of pages read, rather than the number of times a book is checked out.

Prime Day: Why wait for Thanksgiving to roll out huge deals? For its 20th anniversary Wednesday, Amazon launched Prime Day, promising major bargains for its members. Surprise, surprise: major competitor Walmart followed suit, announcing its own rival discounts on the same day.