Basic rule of sales

I’m gradually spending more time at Quora and less at Substack.

An elementary rule of business says that a display, whether it’s a store window or a magazine cover or a social media feed, should offer a variety of items. A variety gives each customer a chance to find something he likes in his current mood or his current needs. If the business is specialized, like a car magazine or a women’s clothing store, the display will stay inside the subject, but it will offer the widest possible variety within the subject.

Another basic rule: Find out what the customer likes and give him what he likes. This is so obvious it shouldn’t need to be said. Substack violates this rule as well, and Quora obeys it.

Substack doesn’t present a variety each time you open it. Instead, it decides on ONE subject for this viewing, and hammers you relentlessly with the ONE subject. Most of the subjects bear no connection to the authors I like and subscribe. Most of the subjects are crude political party crap, which I’ve consistently blocked. The more I block, the more it insists that I must see only this one subject right now.

Quora tries for variety, with very little partisan crap, and steadily shows me the specific authors I’ve liked and upvoted, plus others who are closely related. I don’t need to block or downvote because I don’t feel barraged with crap. Quora is dominated by stories of personal experience, and many of them are absorbing. There’s not much abstract philosophizing.

(Admittedly Quora has a constant underbrush of pointless IQ questions, but they’re easy to skip over because nobody ever answers them. Real questions have long answers.)