Ok so you hate watching videos - what would make you want to watch them?

You're not. You're forcing them to make a choice: watch my entire video because I took away the controls, or leave my page.

I can scan down a long sales letter. I can scroll to the bottom and find the price and order button. I have no such option with a video you took all the controls off of. You force me to sit through it all to get to anything else. See how that's apples and oranges?

That's not what I did. I said taking away the controls on a video is like walking into a store and being confronted by a salesperson who will not let you walk around, look, touch, etc. That was the point. They force you to make a choice: listen to my entire sales pitch right now or leave. That's what you're doing on your web page when you take video controls away and require it to be viewed before getting to a price, order button, opt-in, etc.

Fair enough. I do think it's rude. I would never use such a tactic. I may very well make less money because I won't do it. That's ok. It's not all about making the highest conversion rate possible, regardless of the tactics involved. And as for long sales letters, again, people can still skim them (the reading version of fast-forwarding a video that you refuse to let them do in this analogy). So I've not taken away options when I use a long sales letter. And the order button and price is right there at the bottom, so if someone starts to get bored by my long letter, they have an option that isn't limited to leaving my page. Comparing a video without controls to a long sales letter, as you see, is apples and oranges.

Because they can skim and skip down by scrolling. Can they do any of that with your uncontrolled video pitch?

Answered twice above.

I never claimed you wouldn't make more sales. I questioned way back at first if that claim was actually true and could someone show proof. I think I'd get a higher conversion rate with the same video with controls. If you or anyone else has tested that one variable (same exact page and video, one with and one without controls), I'm curious to know what the results were. It's the same curiosity I have about many black-hat tactics. I'd never try them, but I'm still curious, as a marketer, to know what's working for others.

I'm not sure I see how that follows. How do you know that?

Possibly. There's no way to know what might offend someone. At the end of the day, I prefer the chance of a few less sales and allowing someone the option of fast-forwarding or pausing a video. I'm quite sure I'm not alone in finding the videos that have no controls to be annoying. So I choose not to engage in that practice. How it impacts my bottom line is of no concern. Just because I can do something doesn't mean I should. I make a conscious choice to avoid certain practices, even if engaging in them might grow my bank account a little bigger. At the end of the day, we only really have our own internal measures when it comes to these issues, right? To each his own.

Me too.