I thought he wasn’t talking about BPM indicators but about pitch percentage indicators? These are on Technics 1200s as well as anything else, and they are helpful. I used to write rough BPM values on my records and do a bit of math in my head to get the pitch faders in roughly the right place before matching by ear.
Sorry, haven’t responded because I’ve been insanely busy with work lately. Yeah, I know what I’m doing is still cheating, but I think its a step in the right direction. It’s like studying before a big test…I’m making notes. In time, I won’t need the notes, I’ll just be able to do it, but its a nice aide to have right now. I think knowing the bpm ahead of time is helping me figure out how to listen for the slower/faster track.
I definitely agree with whoever said to go ahead and use the visual aides in the beginning, especially if you don’t have someone to show you the ropes. I think the visual aides go a long way. As you start to pick things up, turn them off and try to do it with only your ear.
ah…my bad. fair enough then. visual aids can def help too, but it’s also pretty tricky to not look at them when they’re there 
ofc in reality 99.99% of the time you’ll always have visual aids available these days so being able to use them effectively is also very useful.
it’s all good imho… doing it completely manually, reading the bpm counters and/or waveforms or clicking on the (evil?) sync button… 
Learned to beatmatch on cheap turntables in the 80’s - all that mattered to me was they have a pitch control - now all that matters to me is what comes out of the speakers. As long as its mixed live, who cares…not me. Oh, paid to play and use pirated tracks - you’re scum… a big or little pro and you play pre-mixed, cause “its too risky to have anything go wrong” - you’re now a useless poseur.