Purchasing a copy of Moby Dick at a garage sale for $1 means you have purchased the option of reading it for as long as you want to keep it on your bookshelf.
There is a slight possibility you could sell it for $1 in the future, or $0.50 or $2. But that would probably take more effort than you want to put into the enterprise.
But mostly what that $1 buys you is an option on use value. You are free to use the book after paying for it. But you are not obligated to use it.
The author's point was, I believe, that there's a difference between exchange cost and use cost, which is certainly true. But if you're going to use this parable as an analogy for some business process, you may be better served by thinking about a larger scope: a scope that admits the possibility of value in options.
When I was a kid we used to say: "You always pay for what you get. And if you're lucky, you only pay in cash."
The value of having the option to read Moby Dick is essentially zero: you can look it up online whenever you want.
When someone chooses to spend a buck buying Moby Dick at a garage sale, the value they get is based on calculating that they will also read it. If they spend the cash but not the time, they've basically just thrown a dollar away.
I am asserting that you are claiming ignorance on the author's part when the better interpretation is that the author is speaking about general common occurrences and you are focused on edge cases that while true do not detract from the author's point.
Presumably anyone about to embark on a voyage to Antarctica understands that their purchasing decisions have slightly different constraints than a random person sitting in their apartment mindlessly scrolling on Amazon and doing some "retail therapy".
Options are closer to paying 1$ at a garage sale for the owner to sell it to you on a future date at 1$ and you have the right but not the obligation to do so (say the price is 20 cents next year - you don't have to buy the book at 1$ anymore and you hope that your option you purchased is less than 79.9 cents in order to profit.
Purchasing a copy of Moby Dick at a garage sale for $1 means you have purchased the option of reading it for as long as you want to keep it on your bookshelf.
There is a slight possibility you could sell it for $1 in the future, or $0.50 or $2. But that would probably take more effort than you want to put into the enterprise.
But mostly what that $1 buys you is an option on use value. You are free to use the book after paying for it. But you are not obligated to use it.
The author's point was, I believe, that there's a difference between exchange cost and use cost, which is certainly true. But if you're going to use this parable as an analogy for some business process, you may be better served by thinking about a larger scope: a scope that admits the possibility of value in options.
When I was a kid we used to say: "You always pay for what you get. And if you're lucky, you only pay in cash."