Value, in the money sense, is what someone is prepared to pay. That's the kind of value I was referring to. Which is indeed one possible definition of the word

Value, in the money sense, is what someone is prepared to pay. That's the kind of value I was referring to. Which is indeed one possible definition of the word, but not the most useful one in a world where rational economic agents don't exist. The average person's intuitive sense of how much they value something doesn't necessarily bear any relation to how much they'd pay for it. For instance, in memetichazard's post above: "Or, if the value of such things is great enough, then the demand will be there to pay for it." Under the economic definition of value this can be loosely paraphrased as "If people are willing to pay enough for these things, there will be enough to demand to pay for it", a statement which is tautological and rather inane, allowing us to infer that memetichazard probably intended some other meaning for "value". Under any other definition of "value", including most common use, it's entirely possible (or even likely) for something to have a value unrelated to its price or market demand.