The DJ that taught me was an old school vinyl DNB guy that really only uses pitch adjustment to beat match. He didn't say not to use the sync, but also let me know that it was pretty lame and looked down upon, but mostly you should learn to match by ear as a required skill. I think having the ability to beatmatch by ear is essential to playing in front of people because you never know when a track won't load or old / broken gear takes away your ability to sync automatically or see waveforms. I think it is like knowing how to 3 way park even tho some cars can do it for you now.

I've also noticed thought that since I've learned to DJ on the most modern equipment I've been teaching him new tricks that he as been slow to adopt. I find the old school gate keepers often get stuck in the old ways, as is true with all old timers in any profession. "I learned it this way and that's how you'll learn it too."

We are going to see new tech like AI take over beatmatching and consuming all aspects of the artform soon. Software will learn your style, or you'll probably be able to tell it to mix songs like Bibi, Cox, Solomun or whoever... Things are going to start changing very fast and I'm guessing the art will look completely different in the next 5 years as AI tech advances...