> The degree to which people are skeptical of markets and a market value associated with their actions is so immense
Similarly, the degree to which market advocates, themselves, exhibit skepticism about the market mechanism vis-a-vis their own intellectual products is so immense, in fact, that the idea that ideas achieving widespread adoption within the marketplace of ideas do, indeed, have vastly greater value than those with inferior adoption is simply met with comparably-inarticulate derision.
Ideas aren't a great place to push free market ideals; especially because so many ideas are basically anti-freedom and anti-market. How often does anyone come up with "let people sort it out themselves, bearing the costs and consequences" as a new idea? When it is suggested it is rare to see someone championing it with enthusiasm and to wide acclaim. Compare that to the "Lets order people to [activity]" style ideas that are common and suggested in many forms.
Using market forces to measure the value of an idea is not clever. Ideas that are to be put into practice should be assessed primarily by whether they are grounded in evidence or not, and secondarily by whether people are willing to cope with the consequences of the idea going wrong.
An idea being popular or gaining popularity does not make it a valuable idea (or indeed a good idea). That stands in stark contrast to economic forces which measure resource creation and destruction with a cruel accuracy.
The Aspen Summit a few years ago had a forum where someone pushed for major news outlets to promote more intellectual, nuanced content, and one rep from a major network pushed back. They pointed out that the consumer of that sort of content is going to the ballet, or trying the new restaurant by some named chef, or attending the Aspen Summit, not staying at home watching 24-hour news. That sophisticated audience is out doing interesting things, they might watch occasionally, but aren't a consistent enough news audience to shape content. "We run the market test against PBS every night."
Best thing I can imagine is that policy wonks writing in low subscription specialty journals are a bit like arthouse films. Sure, the indie films lose in the market to blockbusters, and wonky policy journals don't get a tiny fraction of the eyeballs of 24 hour news. But it's more likely for important new ideas to be born in the niche, experimental market than vice versa. They're losing the market test, but contributing a lot of positive externalities by influencing the influencers, they're just not able to capture all those returns.
Similarly, the degree to which market advocates, themselves, exhibit skepticism about the market mechanism vis-a-vis their own intellectual products is so immense, in fact, that the idea that ideas achieving widespread adoption within the marketplace of ideas do, indeed, have vastly greater value than those with inferior adoption is simply met with comparably-inarticulate derision.