That’s stretching the definition of value a bit. Value is certainly situational - you wouldn’t say that someone selling the last parachute on a plane that’s falling is « capturing the true value of the parachute » - or someone selling a bottle of water to someone dying of dehydration in the desert is capturing the true value of the water
I believe I'm using value[1] in the standard economic way as "measure of the benefit provided by a good or service to an economic agent" often framed as "what is the maximum amount of money a specific actor is willing and able to pay for the good or service?".
It's not the same as market price or market value. Market price is what you actually pay, value is the maximum you would hypothetically pay. The difference between the two is the "consumer surplus"[2].
It is situational, but I don't think it varies much in this scenario. You aren't any hungrier inside the airport than you are outside. If food was equally scarce in both locations, you would pay the same amount.
The value is the same in both locations, but the price is higher in the airport. That means consumer surplus is higher outside the airport. The cost to the producer is also roughly the same, so the producer surplus is higher in the airport. The producer has used their monopoly position to take a larger portion of the economic surplus inside the airport.
> but I don't think it varies much in this scenario. You aren't any hungrier inside the airport than you are outside.
I think the poster was claiming that in fact the value is not the same. You aren't hungrier, but you are typically more tired, more rushed, and focused on bigger problems than what to eat for lunch, etc. It's a reasonable argument. That doesn't mean it's thing going on.
