So how does that affect the mining economy then?
From what I understand, miners use as much electricity as possible while staying profitable (and usually try to go to the cheapest energy market). Halving the profitability would halve the level of computing power one could profitably dedicate to mining. Now I know there's the transaction fee, that the very low transaction throughput and high energy costs per transaction means that anyone making a Bitcoin transaction has to attach a bribe to the miners to get their transaction processed with enough priority that it'll happen any time soon. Do the transaction fees go up to compensate for the reduced systemic payout? Do miners just quit the business or shut down a significant amount of computing power because the payouts decrease? Do they speculate on enough deflation that the real money value of their mining work remains stable and pays for the same amount of processing power? If miners reduce their capacity, does that increase the risk of a 51% attack?
As far as personal opinion, I'm strongly opposed to the current Bitcoin model since it devours so much electricity. Due to a tragedy of the commons effect you cannot get all miners to, say, reduce their capacity by 90% all at the same time to reduce the power drain either.