Hacker News Reader

> That is, the art itself has no inherit value. The actual value of a piece of art is whatever you can convince someone to pay for it.

This goes for any good or service. Usually when people talk about the "value of something" they mean "the price that people are willing to pay for it".

View on HN

Sure, in a sense, but I think the point of where exactly it occupies on the hierarchy of needs is worthwhile to keep in mind.

I don't think that argument holds up. A VR headset, say, is astronomically high up the hierarchy of needs, but I know very few people who'd say the inherent value of a piece of modern technology is zero.

It really seems to be art specifically which people are often keen to describe as worthless, not any particular category of good that artwork might fall into.

> A VR headset, say, is astronomically high up the hierarchy of needs

Debatable. One of the most popular uses of VR is pornography, which is targeted at one of the needs on the very bottom layer. Other uses are probably mostly serving mid-level needs like social belonging or esteem needs.

Value and market value are two different things.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com