I played a video game called EverQuest in the late ‘90s, during the early days of MMORPGs and online marketplaces like eBay. 

It was one of the first games where time invested translated into real money. Players would sell high-level accounts bundled with rare items and in-game currency. I noticed the accounts were priced as a whole, regardless of the value inside. Early markets are always incoherent because they don’t know yet what they’re actually selling.

I’d buy an account, strip out the items and currency, then resell the naked character for the same price I paid. Jonathan Yantis made millions with the adult version of what I was doing as a young teen. That’s narrative systems: value can live at the systems level, independent of its parts.

Coherent markets price what they’re selling. When they don’t, value leaks.