What's it worth?

Or more to the point, what's it worth to you?  It's a tough question to answer at times.  Take art for example.  What is the value of a work from one of the great masters?  It must be what someone is willing to pay for it.  But what about if that person were precluded from the equation.  Is it now only worth as much as the next person on the list is willing to pay for it?  I guess so.

But art is an extreme, because pieces are unique and so hard to price accurately.  Nevertheless pricing of everyday items is pretty contorted too.  At the cinema I can buy a small popcorn for 20p less than a large one and yet the large one is twice the size.  So what does that mean?  Evidently it is not being priced on the volume of popcorn because that has doubled at almost no cost.

Then there is the motor industry, that sells us cars in various configurations and models etc.  But the pricing there is pretty strange too.  The exact same car with the same four wheels, same headlights, steering wheel etc but a different engine sometimes often goes for twice the price.  But surely, its only a few extra components.  After all they both do the same thing: drive.

So what is it that drives all these prices?

Whatever we are willing to pay.