Orders of magnitude. Sure, adding someone else in china is in theory worth something. However adding one more friend that I regularly communicate with on a network is worth more to me than every person in China.
PS: For large networks X Log X is probably much closer to reality than X ^2. Just compare the amount of internet bandwidth between NY to California vs the bandwidth between the US and China.
Metcalf's law is not suggesting "The value of the network to any random node within the network." Because that measure is very subjective in the ways you say.
Instead, it's "The total value of the network to all nodes". Because the more people in the network, the higher the probability that the nodes you DO care about are also connected.
PS: For large networks X Log X is probably much closer to reality than X ^2. Just compare the amount of internet bandwidth between NY to California vs the bandwidth between the US and China.