Why does Eve have so much emphasis on mining?
Such a monotonous boring repetative activity encourages botting and automation.
Why would somebody want to play a game for such an activity?
Isn’t it time for such activity to be minimised? I am not taking about botting and automation, I am talking about the actual mining activity itself.
A lot don’t.
CCP Hilmar has described mining as one of the chores of EVE. For most players, it’s a means to some other end, not the end itself.
Personally, I think it is the most boring, inane but necessary activity in the game, but as boring as it is, I can’t think of a better way to design it that isn’t just as boring, or that could underpin much of the industry and other activities that occur.
It’s a necessary evil (and CCP’s original devs were sadists 
)
So, it’s historical baggage and hard to remove?
I am certinally not against PvE or industry/research, I do that myself, exploration, but it’s a lot more exciting than mining.
And more importantly, more involved, an actual PLAYER ACTIVITY!
It could be removed by removing the need for minerals from the game. That itself would be pretty difficult.
However, it’s also one of those low attention activities that people can do in short stints, so it offers something to people that just want to login and play, while watching netflix, or chatting, etc.
Gather, build, destroy.
Take one away and you break the game.
Mr Epeen 
Hunter gatherer
Sure, but we gather other things, via other activities.
The issue is raw resource mechanics, while keeping it player driven, however, there are NPC miners out there are already are there not?
We have belt rats, we can have player driven events, but the problem still remains, the lack of engagement in this “activity”. It’s not really an involved activity, for example, like exploration.
It’s too static, predictable and passive, effortless.
NO
Because your subjective experience of mining isn’t the center of the universe.
You’re not the center of this universe.
Period.
ib4 “Calm down miner”
Also, without mining, where would all those ships and modules that pop up in market for your sci fi simulation pleasure, come from ?
I can say the same about PI, same kind of activity, I find it a stretch to call it an “activity”, it’s more of a forced necessity.
Mining is one of the fundamentals of this game on which a lot of things are built such as the industry, the economy, a target rich environment and value of conquered space.
Mining also offers an additional type of gameplay to the other gatherer playstyles: where exploration asks a lot of attention while busy, PI asks a lot of attention while setting it up but then has a lot of downtime, mining allows players to peacefully float in space looking at the scenery and occasionally targeting a new rock when the old one implodes. Relaxing, a bit like fishing.
As such, I don’t think mining should be removed from the game, or replaced by NPC miners.
That is not to say mining is without issues. I occasionally like doing some mining, but the way mining is implemented in EVE means it’s really easily done AFK or by multiboxing large fleets. And that means that a single mining ship will never be paid as much for their time as other activities in the game. Either you too let your Orca mine (semi-)AFK all day in high sec, or spin up a miming fleet of 6+ ships, or you find another activity to do that isn’t mining.
My recommendation:
It’s part of an ecosystem.
You want it all for free now or at the flick of credit card I guess ?
So, make it more an involved player activity, more engagement by the player. That’s what I am saying.
Make it an actual “gameworthy” activity.
With exploration I have to “play the game” to explore and gather.
You were asking to minimise or remove mining, or to let NPC miners do the work.
We agree that mining currently is not engaging enough, but my solution is much different as I would like mining to always be a possible gameplay choice for players, rather than to remove it.
Agreed.
Make it “fun”, and a “game”. That’s really what I mean. Make it “rewarding” by “playing the game”.
PI is a fun activity, not forced by any means.
Most of the gameplay of PI is the logistical problems you face: what to produce and how much, where to produce, how to import the rather large command centers and export the goods.
Which planets to choose, whether you want to pay the taxes or set up your own customs offices. Next comes setting up the planets themselves, where you can choose how much effort you want to get more products.
After that it’s just a matter of clicking a couple times a week, which is not the most engaging part of PI (I guess this part is what you are referring to when you find it a stretch to call PI an activity) and every now and then you haul your products back to base to use or sell them.
It’s one of my main income sources in EVE, not because I need the PI for industry, but because I like the steady source of income that isn’t much affected by any dangers nearby as long as my corp stays in the same space.
The only way I can see it be a ‘forced’ activity is if you insist in producing your own PI for industry. Why not buy it instead?
That’s an easy ideal to aim for, but how is a much more difficult thing to come up with.
I like mining because I can do something else, something more productive outside of EVE, while I wait for some poor sod to find me and get the funny idea to engage me. I don’t think anything of making mining more active, more convoluted, more dynamic. It serves no purpose other than making it more annoying. What EVE needs is a steady, reliable supply of minerals so that ships, modules and ammo can be built to be used for “fun”. EVE does not need and will not benefit from hilariously badly thought-through, implemented and maintained active mining elements that make the market fluctuate just for the sake of it and because someone at CCP thought that some supply volume here or there is not meeting their goals. What that has led to can be seen in the last 2 years.
That doesn’t work. Everything you make “more fun” and “more playing the game” only ruins EVE further. Countless examples of CCP’s last decade to make this crappy idea happen prove it. Rorquals, carriers, structures, abyss, invasions, etc.
Because it is so awesome and engaging to guard a dumb NPC for hours just so that it mines some ores for you. 
For the same reason of it being an awesome activity, we have so many freighter escorts or mining defense fleets always on grid with mining fleets instead of somewhere in a structure waiting for a ping to light-up discord and drag you out of your more fun WOT or LOL or Valorant or whatever.
Then how about you mine in an area like Uedama or Kinakka or Tama? Lots of very dynamic, unpredictable and high effort mining should be possible there. And if CCP would not have removed more people from space via abyssal space, more people would also still be running around and hunt them and stumbled upon miners, too, to give them a “fun” experience. Plus, if we didn’t have gotten Rorquals, mining would be done in barges still and would be much more engagable. What I want to say is that mining in itself is not bad or unengaging or uneventful. CCP makes it unengaging, bad and uneventful by haphazardly screwing up all sorts of mechanics that prevented this in the past.
Next example of that is already in the making: Mining ship revamp in Q4 2021. This will be a lot of fun, I guarantee it. 
The mining I do is free
This might come as a surprise to you, but the world is absolutely chock-full of room temperature IQ dullards who can only function when presented with a clearly-defined routine that they can go through on autopilot. They’re the people who’ve never thought for themselves in their entire lives. They get the same coffee every day, go to their jobs where they spin the same nuts and bolts or rubber-stamp the same documents for 8 hours, come home and make the same meal they’ve been making every single Tuesday, mine in EVE for a few hours, and repeat this day in and day out for as long as they’re alive. Anything that upsets this routine, or requires independent thought and judgement, sends them into an existential panic.
I’ve been around miners, a lot; I’ve been around more miners than most actual miners. My most common impression when interacting with them is that they must have some kind of brain slug controlling them. As far as human interaction goes, what they say and how they act becomes about as predictable as a decently-crafted chat bot. It’s no surprise that the routine of manual EVE mining is like catnip for them.
The few miners I’ve met who are truly intelligent and conscious don’t spend their time on the mining itself, but on using their abstract thought and critical thinking skills to approach the task from an engineer’s/economist’s perspective by solving it like a puzzle through clever automation and minimization of the risks/sunk costs of treating it as a passive activity, or of getting caught (if using more nefarious methods).
It is a game worthy activity . There are people out there doing this because they really enjoy and relax while doing it. It is not boring for them.
I live with one of thm and h is one of tho most intelligent person i ever met… but he is fricking carebear at the end …
Real Problem is there is so much emphasize on mining for new players … That may be you consider to change the context bit here…
Many new players who has PvP mindset , who likes more action and more dynamic game play ( what eve needs ) they start playing someone in rookie chat tells all these classic lies about PvP and tell them to start mining, And those people stop playing next hour or next day…
Thats the problem…
PVP readiness Fallacy
That is the problem .
CCP doesnt have any social integration politics and strategies and zero application…
Thats the problem…
Can you see any solution attempt for these in game from CCP ?
NO
Some idiot tried… and they told her that she should consider herself not suitable for EvE …
Effort to be part of solution of this problem brings no good …lesson learned.
I think mining as an activity is underrated. It’s like the gaming equivalent of a stress ball.
Sometimes after a bad day at work the comfort of “select and asteroid, mine, select an asteroid, mine” is just what’s needed.
And given we have scarcity ………. Well it can’t be that much of an issue given CCP have had to nerf asteroids etc. enough people enjoy it enough for the game to have way too much mats out there.