Many of us exchange our time for money. We’re paid by the hour, or by the year. There’s another way to be paid, which is by the piece, or by the outcome of the value. When you sell a painting, no one asks you how long it took you to paint it—they think about how it would look in their house, how much they want it compared to other paintings or compared to not having it at all, and the artist thinks about how much she could sell it for to someone else if she doesn’t like the price she’s offered. It’s an exchange of value.
From San Francisco, it takes about 5 hours to get to Hawaii and it costs about $500 but passengers don’t think they’re paying someone $100 an hour for 5 hours to get to Hawaii. They think they’re paying $500 to get to Hawaii. If you could get them there in a minute, they might pay you $600 for that.