In fact I find my brain tends to do the common human ego-centric thing and compartmentalizes the entire planet to only that which I've experienced.
Yet if I just land on a planet and tape the joystick to move my avatar forward... well I could go walk away and come back in six months to a year and see if I made it back to my starting position... and even if I recorded it to watch it at my leisure, my FOV will only cover a small fraction of the total surface area.
It's a gross exaggeration to suggest a single, lone character could "strip mine" an entire planet by themselves.
You need to gather enough radioactive isotopes to power your magical space plane and keep you alive and a few other elements to manufacture upgrades and that's about it. It's not like you're managing a global conglomerate with trillions of dollars of capital invested in machinery to extract every last mineral from the surface.
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I think it says more about the people who interpret the mechanics this way than any statement Hello Games could be making by utilizing these mechanics.