We A/B'd burned-in subtitles vs none and the no-subtitle cut held retention 9% better.

We A/B'd burned-in subtitles vs none and the no-subtitle cut held retention 9% better.
Everyone screams "captions boost watch time." On THIS audience, the moving text pulled eyes off the speaker's face and killed the emotional read. Drop-offs clustered on the busiest caption frames.
Subtitles are a crutch when your delivery can't carry the room.
If your video collapses on mute-and-no-text, captions aren't the fix. Agree or fight me?