By definition, a wasting asset cannot be anything but a poor long term prospect. I'm not quoting you with "90%" blah blah but the general consensus that can be read anywhere.

No one talks about contango in futures pricing. With interest rates so low these days, how come such a large contango is still habitually built into prices?

In the UK a "fair value" futures premium would be based on the interest rate, with fluctuations either side caused by the normal day-to-day sentiment of markets.

Look at a rack of crude futures prices for the next year, and apart from a general increase in the contango as one goes forward, there is little pattern that can be accounted for by mere seasonal factors alone, let alone interest rates and other factors like storage/transportation costs.

One could argue that buying March Crude for a premium of over a dollar beyond the front month represents "thrown away money" in the same vein as time value on an OTM option. I know that I am adverse to buying at large contangos or shorting when a market is backwardated. Maybe I'm just mad, but I get some artistic licence as a non-professional I would have thought.