https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32857769
> It's important to note that price, the last traded price, and value are all distinct concepts. The last traded price is the only one of these we can measure ahead of time, so we often use it as a metanym for these other concepts. ...
> When the oil futures went negative, it wasn't the case that the value of oil was negative - this was about the structure of the market and the sorts of positions people were caught in when the pandemic hit. We continued to consume oil throughout the pandemic, and so I'd say we continued to value it.
> Another example would be, if a rancher has a lot of cow poop, they might pay a farmer to take it away. You could say that the cow poop has a negative price on it. But the farmer is going to make use of it as fertilizer; from the farmer's perspective, this is a commodity that has value.
> It's true though that there are a million theories of value and it's impossible to say what something's value is definitively, you can only make a decision about what is value is to you.
I'd expand that you actually have to define what value means to you, relative to the context in which the discussion is taking place. You'll likely find yourself considering value from different perspectives in different situations; I find myself doing so.
