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~jetgirl

>Should "value" solely be defined by amount people will pay for something?

In this instance yes. The value being portrayed here is monetary in the scope of the discussion. A loving text message can have way more emotional value than say a news article about upcoming road closures. The issue is, if I go to a news site and all I can see is the headline "Upcoming Road Closures..." then a "subscribe for $5 a month" below it, do I care enough about that information to pay for it? I pay for text messages to be sent to my phone (all bundled up in the phone plan these days but I'm sure you remember when they were pay per text.) so why wouldn't I want to pay the local news directly for their information that can ultimately affect my commute? Same applies to stories, poetry, books, etc. At what point is my writing worth charging for? When I print it out? I can read the same quality writing in online lit journals as the printed lit journals on my desk.

Some of the idea on this came up after the HuffPost layoffs, some drama about Substack Payments, then rekindled after MEL magazine was shut down. Just interesting things to think about when an outlet that was once easily profitable and held monetary value rapidly dies, the value of the (exact same) content also diminishes.

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~maya wrote (thread):

Yeah, totally fair to scope the question.

I suppose the weird questions get into -- the writing can be the same quality, but do other aspects of the experience of reading also matter? There are studies out there about people's perception of flavors changing with how a meal is plated. If we think people aren't just somehow *wrong* to assign the values they do, then considering those marginal and peripheral elements can be interesting.

( I wouldn't pay for someone's default Microsoft Word settings printed out work, but I do buy a lot of zines, so I'm consciously a fan of presentation. )