Stale listings do more harm than an empty row
An empty category is honest. A row of apps that have not transferred in months teaches buyers that the aisle is a museum.
Operators fear an empty category. They keep old apps on the shelf so the house looks stocked. In a liquidity sitting, those old apps are often the problem hiding in plain sight.
A buyer who opens a services aisle and sees last year’s tutors, last year’s painters, and a featured row that never completes a job learns a rule: this catalog does not move. The next visit is shorter. Publishers who still do good work then share the aisle with decoration, which makes seller weight look healthier than it is.
An empty row at least tells the truth. It is an aisle you have not yet filled, or an aisle you should close. A stale row is a set dressing.
We do not have a universal age at which a listing becomes stale. A festival-week food stall and a year-round cleaning listing do not share a clock. What we do is band the sample: listings that transferred quickly, listings that transferred slowly, listings that never transferred. The working session then decides which band still deserves a public lamp.
Pulling a stale listing is not a moral judgement on the publisher. It is a decision about what the aisle teaches. Operators who treat every pull as an insult to a partner usually keep the museum and keep the argument.