(Your opinion) Is private access more valued than public access?

[OmarEL]

Guys, I'd love your advice on this.

I've been working really hard on a show where I've been interviewing entrepreneurs and founders on various self growth and mindset topics.

Here's the thing:

I'm launching quietly to test out different models and I've been debating this....While I'd love for as many people to watch the interviews, I personally feel like people should take some sort of action before watching.

So what I've done is put in a preview of each interview, then after the preview you're prompted to login.

Some have bantered me over it and others have said it's the right thing to do to validate viewers.

What's right and what's wrong with this in your own opinion? What would you do?

An example of it is here: http://www.omarel.com/Tony-Stubblebine

The mobile preview is totally different from the desktop.

Thanks.

[User9812]

That page doesn't load correctly on my desktop, so I can't see the example.

Your question though, you want to show the first few minutes of the video or something along those lines, then ask users to register?

That'll definitely increase registration. I don't agree with it though. You'll inflate your registration numbers, and at the same time, turn away users from enjoying your content. For example, Quora displays a portion of comments, then blurs the rest asking you to sign-up. I know you can get creative and modify the URL to get the full page, but I just no longer visit links to Quora based on principle. I don't like to jump through unnecessary hoops.

You want users to register, because they want to register. You can hold their video hostage after the preview, and they'll just create a throwaway account, or register, and never participate or return. Is that something you want to encourage for the ego boost of a higher user count?

Anyway, that's my take on the situation. I'm always for giving users the best experience possible, and I think interrupting their video doesn't achieve that goal.