I am pretty confident that negentropy has inherent value. Relative to a particular person or entity on short timescales it may have negative economic value but averaged over all possible economic transactions it's almost always the case that available energy can be transformed into something that someone/something wants.

You just have to look at natural ecosystems to see the reality of this; almost anywhere there's an energy gradient creating a niche there's some lifeform taking advantage of the situation.