Ok then skip the word "value" entirely. People are willing to pay a lot for ETH, because they're willing to pay to issue transactions on the network and that in

Ok then skip the word "value" entirely. People are willing to pay a lot for ETH, because they're willing to pay to issue transactions on the network and that increases the price of the network's currency. That's not a tautology because it's two different things. If they were only paying for the currency, that could be just a speculative bubble. If the price is based on people paying to issue transactions, that's a price built on actual use.