Value measurement using time

When we measure the value of a product, we will normally say how much it costs or how expensive is it. Is price equal to value?

Of couase not. Even the price is the same, the value of the product might be vary depend on the buyers. For example buyers with annual income RM10 thousands, and buyers with annual income RM50 thousands.

If we calculate how much the buyer earn money in every hour, we will clearly see the difference. For a normal employee, we usually work around 2000 hour a year (7.5 hours x 5.5 days x 52 weeks). So we divide our annual income by 2000 and we will roughly get our hour income. Buyer with RM10 thousand annual income will get 10000/2000 = RM5, while buyer with RM50 thousand will get 50000/2000 = RM 25.

Now both buyers bought an iPhone costed RM2000. Buyer with RM5/hour actually used up RM2000/RM5 = 400 hours to buy the phone, while buyer with RM25/hour used RM2000/RM25 = 80 hours. Both buyers are able to buy the same product, buy what they paid is actually not the same.