---
title: some things are kept for no price
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/some-things-are-kept-for-no-price
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/some-things-are-kept-for-no-price.md
subtitle: "existence, legacy, beauty — reasons that need no price"
category: philosophy
---

# some things are kept for no price

*existence, legacy, beauty — reasons that need no price*

**Existence value** is the value people place on a place or a species simply existing, even if they never use it, visit it, or see it. Most people who are glad there are still blue whales will never see one. That gladness is real, and economists call it existence value. The idea traces to John Krutilla's 1967 essay "Conservation Reconsidered," which argued that markets miss the value people hold for unique natural places and species they may never visit, alongside the value of keeping the option to use them later (option value). The idea, and the name "existence value," was developed further by later economists.

Its close cousin is **bequest value**, sometimes called legacy value: the worth of leaving something intact for people who come after. A grandmother who wants the creek behind the house to still have trout in it when her grandchildren are grown is holding both at once.

The whale and the trout already exist and already depend on other living things, whether or not anyone names them. **[Ensurance](https://ensurance.app/?from=guide)** is how the reason you name gets funded to keep working. It is not the whale, and it is not the reason.

:::johnson
**a reason to keep something does not need a use behind it.** Existence, legacy, and beauty are purposes in their own right, and a purpose can hold an account.

[see the existence and legacy address →](/existence-legacy.ensurance?from=guide)
:::

## existence value, use value, and the rest

Economists usually split the value of nature into use and non-use. Use value is what you get by drinking, harvesting, fishing, or walking. Non-use value is what you hold without any of that.

| kind of value | what it is | an example |
|---|---|---|
| Direct use | You take or experience it | Water from the well, a day on the river |
| Indirect use | It works for you without your touching it | The wetland that slows the flood before it reaches town |
| Option | You keep the chance to use it later | A forest you might hike someday |
| Existence | You value that it exists | A species on another continent |
| Bequest | You value leaving it for others | A creek you want your grandchildren to fish |

The first three rows are about use, now or later. The last two are not. That is what makes them hard to price, and it is why they are easy to leave off the books.

## the five meaning flows

The protocol keeps a list of 19 **flows**, the kinds of work a living system does. Five of them are about meaning more than use: recreation and experiences, research and learning, aesthetic and sensory, art and inspiration, and existence and legacy. Each has a purpose account under `.ensurance`; [aesthetic-sensory.ensurance](/aesthetic-sensory.ensurance?from=guide) is one, and [existence-legacy.ensurance](/existence-legacy.ensurance?from=guide) is another. On 26 October 2026 none of the five had a wallet deployed. They are addresses.

Recreation and research involve use of a kind. Beauty, inspiration, and existence come closest to pure non-use. All five are on the list because a list that stops at water, food, and flood control would leave out most of why people actually keep places.

Some things are worth keeping without a price.

## the same reason at four sizes

A reason scales like any other purpose. Here it is at four sizes, each with a live account.

| size | account | what someone might hold for it |
|---|---|---|
| One wetland | [marble-wetlands-preserve.avlt](/marble-wetlands-preserve.avlt?from=guide) | Neighbors who visit the beaver wetland and want it there in fifty years |
| One river | [crystal-river.basin](/crystal-river.basin?from=guide) | People who want a free-flowing reach to stay free-flowing, whether they fish it or not |
| One family of fish, across oceans | [salmon.syndicate](/salmon.syndicate?from=guide) | People far from any coast who are glad salmon still run (address, no wallet) |
| The reason itself, anywhere | [existence-legacy.ensurance](/existence-legacy.ensurance?from=guide) | Anyone who holds existence or legacy as the aim (address, no wallet) |

**What stays the same:** the reason. Being glad a thing exists is the same act whether the thing is a pond down the road or a fish on the far side of the world. The account shape is the same too.

**What changes:** distance and evidence. At the wetland, the people who hold the reason can walk the edge, and the evidence is the place still being there. At the scale of a species, the people are scattered and the evidence is a population count. This is relational value at different sizes, the value in the bond between people and a living thing, and the bonds between living things themselves. The prequel post [what is relational value?](/guide/what-is-relational-value?from=guide) sets that out.

## causes held for culture and care

Some purposes are held for reasons of culture, faith, or responsibility rather than use. The catalog carries addresses for two such causes: [cultural-fire.syndicate](/cultural-fire.syndicate?from=guide) and [sacred-river.syndicate](/sacred-river.syndicate?from=guide). Neither has a wallet or a description today. They are names, not programs. We made these addresses; no nation or practice-holder asked for them.

We say only that much on purpose. Many peoples, including Indigenous nations, keep fire practices and sacred rivers under their own laws and knowledge. Those traditions are theirs to describe and govern. An address in a catalog does not speak for any of them, and if one is ever kept, it should be kept by the people whose practice it is, on their terms.

## the honest objection

Existence value is contested, and the argument is worth knowing. The usual way to measure it is to ask people, in a survey, what they would pay to keep a place or species. Economists have argued for decades over whether those answers measure anything stable: people may state numbers that do not match what they would actually do, and answers can shift with how the question is framed. In a well-known 1994 paper, Peter Diamond and Jerry Hausman argued that such surveys fail basic consistency tests, and that their results are not fit for damage assessment or cost-benefit analysis.

This post does not need to settle that. The reason to keep something counts whether or not anyone can turn it into a reliable dollar figure. Where a number is used, it is a bridge that makes the reason legible to a budget. It is never the worth; that argument is in [a valuation is not the worth](/guide/a-valuation-is-not-the-worth?from=guide).

## a blank is not a zero

One habit follows. When a valuation sheet has no figure for existence, beauty, or inspiration, the blank means *not enough data*. It does not mean *zero value*. A place with an empty existence row is not worth less than a place with a filled one; it has simply been measured less. Read every blank that way, and the places held for no price stop falling off the bottom of the list.

## where this leads

A reason needs people who hold it. A purpose with an address still needs someone to sign, keep the record, and decide what support goes where. That is the last post in this series, [every purpose needs people who keep it](/guide/every-purpose-needs-people-who-keep-it?from=guide).

If there is something you keep for no reason you can price, a pond, a view, a run of fish you will never catch, and you want it named, [tell us what it is](/contact?from=guide&topic=ppp-purpose).

## frequently asked questions

### what is existence value?

Existence value is the value people place on a natural place or species existing, even if they never use or see it. The idea traces to John Krutilla's 1967 essay "Conservation Reconsidered." It is a non-use value, alongside bequest value, the worth of leaving something for future generations.

### can existence value be measured?

Economists usually try with surveys that ask what people would pay to keep something, and they have long disagreed about whether those answers are reliable. On ensurance a reason counts without a price, and any figure is a bridge, not the worth.

### what is the difference between existence value and bequest value?

Existence value is valuing that a thing exists now. Bequest value, also called legacy value, is valuing that it will still exist for people who come after you. Both are non-use values, and the protocol's existence and legacy flow names them together.

## sources

John V. Krutilla, "Conservation Reconsidered," *American Economic Review* 57(4), 1967, pp. 777–786 — the argument that people value unique natural places and species they may never use, and the case for option value. Background: [Resources for the Future, "Conservation Reconsidered turns 50"](https://www.resources.org/archives/conservation-reconsidered-turns-50-the-environmental-turn-in-natural-resource-economics/).

[Peter A. Diamond and Jerry A. Hausman, "Contingent Valuation: Is Some Number Better than No Number?", *Journal of Economic Perspectives* 8(4), 1994, pp. 45–64](https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v8y1994i4p45-64.html) — the critique of survey-based measures of non-use value.

## the series

1. [what counts as a purpose?](/guide/what-counts-as-a-purpose?from=guide) — read first
2. [a flow is a purpose](/guide/a-flow-is-a-purpose?from=guide)
3. [an ecosystem is a purpose too](/guide/an-ecosystem-is-a-purpose-too?from=guide)
4. [species, subspecies, and the population in one creek](/guide/species-subspecies-population?from=guide)
5. [some things are kept for no price](/guide/some-things-are-kept-for-no-price?from=guide) — you are here
6. [every purpose needs people who keep it](/guide/every-purpose-needs-people-who-keep-it?from=guide)

## the three series

1. [what counts as a place?](/guide/what-counts-as-a-place?from=guide) — place
2. [what counts as a purpose?](/guide/what-counts-as-a-purpose?from=guide) — purpose
3. [who counts as people?](/guide/who-counts-as-people?from=guide) — people
4. [what do you want to ensure?](/guide/what-do-you-want-to-ensure?from=guide) — where the three began