The first question is the price

The most common message any small brand or restaurant in the region receives is two words long. How much.

Sometimes it is a question mark under the post, or a voice note asking the same thing in a Cairo accent. It lands under the reel of the dress, the photograph of the cake, the sofa in the showroom light, hundreds of times a day across the whole feed, on every account that decided the price would live in the messages.

Consider what has already happened by the time it arrives. The customer gave the post a minute. She read the caption, looked at the pictures, liked the thing enough to ask. Then she reached the one piece of information the post withheld, and the minute was spent on getting nowhere. Now she is waiting on a reply from a business that answers in the evening, when the mood that made her ask has gone.

The reasons for hiding it are always the same three. "Competitors will see it." "The price is a conversation." "We want them to message us so we can sell." Each one treats the customer's attention as something still to be captured, when it had already been lent.

Put the price in the post, and watch what the conversation becomes. A price is permission. It tells the customer whether this is for her, and if it is, she arrives with the only question that matters already answered and the next one ready: which size, which day, do you deliver to Nasr City. That is a conversation. How much is a queue.

In this market a hidden price does not read as intriguing. It reads as a reason to be careful, and the customer who typed how much was giving you the last of a minute you had already used.