I get the point of the resource re-balancing and removing kinds of ore from kinds of space. I think that is probably a good change overall.
But, I think we kind of lost something, too. You used to be able to get reasonably close to “living off the land,” where you could set up a small operation in a wormhole or some remote corner of k-space, and be self-sufficient to a significant extent, mining and harvesting the mats to make at least a fair bit of what you need, and kind of camp out, avoiding returning to major markets. It kind of forces you to vary your gameplay. You do a little PvE combat, a little exploration, a little mining and harvesting, a little manufacturing, a little PvP, etc. I’ve had a fair amount of fun trying to make that work in various remote locations over the years. I don’t necessarily think we need to wipe out that capability in order to achieve the goals of the re-balancing.
For example, what about if they make a new zone of low sec that branches off some remote part of Aridia or somewhere like that, that isn’t in jump range of null sec or anywhere easily accessible. Maybe further make it difficult to access by blocking wormholes and filaments there.
Then, give it a fuller range of resources, but in small enough quantities that it wouldn’t be commercially significant. E.g., ore anomalies that have all the minerals, but in small enough quantities that you could build your own stuff from it, but, given its remoteness, you couldn’t make much of a profit off it. Maybe have mission agents from a faction that rewards some of the random things you can’t make there through the LP store. Maybe have a variety of exploration sites that drops a wide range of relatively basic things you might need. Etc.
I don’t think the space as a whole would need to be especially profitable, It probably shouldn’t be.