In economics, you often deal with situations where an asset has devalued below another asset's value. The first asset still has value, but relatively less than the second.

This is different from an asset which has zero value. Some economists enjoy the wordplay of "worth less" (first meaning) vs "worthless" (second meaning)

In this instance, it looks like the article is describing how increasing controls further devalues the options.

Edit: For instance, if the company decides on each attempt if you're allowed to exercise the option, you might value it at 25% of the stock price, or lower. Even moreso, you can't be certain that the company will still exist when your options can be traded for cash, which should devalue the options even more in your perspective.

It should be the net same as if you're working for someone, and they paid you with an IOU for 1% of the money they might win from a lottery ticket. So the value might be infinitesimally small, but not zero.