Why is the variance a better measure of variability than the range?

Question

Why is the variance a better measure of variability than the range?

Answer 1

The range is only sensitive to the outliers of the data points.  The Variance represents the entire data selection in measuring variability.

So lets say the data points were

1, 500, 501, 502, 503, 504, and  10,000,000,000,000

The variability other than the first and last number are not that different.  

Vs.   1, 100, 50000, 65900900,  459292939393,  39494949494, 10,000,000,000,000

Here the range is exactly the same as before, but you can see there is WAYYYY more variability.