It sounds weird but it's not a bad idea, no. In essence an infinite set of future payments has a finite present value, due to inflation.
i.e., suppose inflation is 100%, this means prices will double every year, and the real value of a nominal amount will halven every year. So $100 today, will be worth $50 (in today's money) in a year from now. A year later (2 years), a $100 then will be worth $25 in today's money. Another year later (3 years) it'd be worth $12.5. And so on.
As you can see, a nominal future payment, say $100 in 300 years, will start to approach zero.
Of course interest rates aren't quite that high, but it's just to get the point across. The interest rate is essentially a discount rate, which lets you value a future amount of money, in today's prices. In the above example, $100 in 3 years would be worth 100 / 2^3 = 12.5
This means that an infinite series of payments (perpetuity) can be calculated as well by simply taking the payment divided by the interest rate to discount it with. So at an interest rate of say 5%, a $100 per year infinitely, would be worth $2000 today.
In other words, in a world with 5% interest rates, you'd be indifferent to receive $2000 today, or $100 ad infinitum. They have the same present value.