Cost is relative and does not need to translate to a monetary value. 1. An entrepreneur spending $500 on a gift after they've IPOed/sold the company compared t

Cost is relative and does not need to translate to a monetary value. 1. An entrepreneur spending $500 on a gift after they've IPOed/sold the company compared to when they're ramen profitable. The significance is different because the level of sacrifice is different. 2. A hacker setting up a blog as a gift (easy) versus writing a sensitive poem (hard). The challenge and amount of effort (real or perceived) are what count in this case. This is why unique, hand-made, decorative items work well as gifts, because they show a large time investment without having any appeal to gold-diggers. When courtship is reexamined in this light, it fits the model pretty well actually.