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That headline sounds like it could start a really interesting discussion on economics, actually. Of course, worth is meaningless when you get to quantities that large. But there are costs, and benefits, of mining it. And analyzing weird interactions and schools of thought from classical economics on those would be super interesting

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It's easier than that. You access the asteroid, the prices drop.

thats the most surface level, obvious concequence. Thats why I said " worth is meaningless when you get to quantities that large." But how much? how much would it have to drop to make the cost of launching too high, when it might give you monopoly power over the supply of an entire fundamental chemical element. How much would you be able to exploit that monopoly ? political consequences?

even outside of anticompetetive practices, When the price of a fundamental good drops like that, new industries and new uses become viable. Sometimes the market then grows to the point that you make more money than you might expect

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