The concept of exchange value versus use value has kind of gone away in modern economic analysis, probably for good reason. At first glance, it seems fairly odd to separate goods that give you direct value from those that give you value indirectly.
The concept also doesn’t mesh well with a modern Austrian “value-scale” analysis, as seen in this article by Bob Murphy. Where a good fits on your value scale is determined by what need it serves, regardless of what exactly you intend to do with it.
Yet the concept is still present in Menger’s Principles of Economics, which I’m reading right now.
In reading his section on exchange value and use value, I had a strange realization, that maybe does mean something, and Menger doesn’t mention this explicitly:
Use value is internal to you. It depends on your internal value scale, and, as such, can be affected by you changing your mind.
Exchange value is determined by forces outside of you. It is external. If you’re isolated, all exchange values are zero. But if you can visit a market, those values suddenly become nonzero, but determined by value scales you have no control over.