[unsignedqword]

"Why does every video player need a play and pause button? They are legacy interfaces left over from hardware devices with actual buttons. There is no cost or side effect of not pausing a video. GIFs are a great example showing that we don't need these controls any more."

Having extensive control becomes more important with longer videos. Being interrupted while watching, the desire to go back and rewatch a particular segment, etc. becomes more likely

[twak]

I guess I was thinking that a good way to simplify many video UIs would be to remove these buttons. Perhaps the browser-esque way of providing this functionality would be to use bookmarks instead?