Will space being largely populated in NEAR future?

The population outside Earth will remain low in the first century of spaceflight, but the increasingly uninhabitable Earth will eventually force people to left it. in 2100 CE, tens of millions of people might be around in space, and 2200 CE will probably see the rise of the extraterrestrial powers.

Stop using oil right now won't stop Earth from warming. In fact, some CO2 estimates put the red line below the current amount of CO2. As such, the disaster of 2 K rise in the temperature is coming. Either geoengineering or doomed.

Have you tried ignoring the problem?

Oh, there's plenty of valuable stuff in space. Now, granted, there is so much valuable stuff that bringing it all home would completely throw the supply curve and crater its price to just a hair above the cost of production, but we can easily make up for it in volume.  After all, we already have companies on Earth that make a profit selling water. That process would also take time, so early-birds in the space industry would be able to cash in their $5 trillion asteroids at nearly full price.  They'll just have to keep in mind that those prices won't last as everything starts trending toward abundance.

The real kicker though, will be using stuff in space to build stuff in space.  Zero-G refining and manufacturing.  By never having to go down a gravity well at any point in the supply chain, you can massively reduce the impact of weight on your production costs.  It'll still affect your delta-V budget of course, but you'll be able to run much thinner margins when you're not also having to fight gravity.  By slashing the production cost of manufactured goods, we can continue to rake in massive profit even as the flood of raw materials from space causes global prices to tank.

The profit potential of space industry is, if you'll pardon the pun, astronomical.  The only reason it hasn't happened already is that the initial hurdle to get it off the ground is equally high, but we are making significant progress toward overcoming that.  Once we've broken through the launch barrier, there will be nothing left to stop us.

Perhaps, but if you build it they will come. By drastically reducing the cost of material inputs and eliminating the need to lift materials out of Earth's gravity, the cost of building things in space will plummet to the point that megascale structures become feasible. And by megascale structures, I mean giant space stations that can grow food on-board and simulate gravity by spinning.

It may all be remote at first, but it will lay the groundwork for making orbital colonies possible. Orbital colonies will be attractive because they will be closer to the orbital industrial facilities both in terms of absolute distance and delta-V budget. This means less light-lag, and cheaper delivery of finished goods. In a polar orbit they can also enjoy uninterrupted 24/7 solar power, significantly reducing their energy costs and allowing them to run smaller reactors. Manufacturing facilities would likely be in a similar orbit for similar reasons.

The net result is a competitive advantage in operating nearby manufacturing stations, and a lower cost of living due to reduced energy costs and lower delivery costs for finished goods. The competitive advantage is what will motivate companies to build the colonies in the first place, the low cost of living is what will attract the colonists. Of course, in the long run that low cost of living will only be possible to maintain by continuously building more and larger colonies, in order to supply enough housing to meet demand. As long as nothing gets in the way of construction though, economies of scale will ensure that benefits continue to accumulate and costs continue to drop.

Once that is all in place, the economic ecosystem in orbit will make building and deploying interplanetary ships so cheap that people will do it just because they can. It's a virtuous cycle all the way up.

If you ask me, there is little reason for people for the most part to be in space itself.

People by design are built to live in gravity, not in free fall.
Yes there is artificial gravity and so on, but I think the future of space is similar to the present, in that most of space will be populated with drones/ robots.

Robots don't need to sleep, aren't bothered by lack of oxygen, warmth, differences in pressure, pain, loneliness, boredom, radiation, isolation, years of waiting to reach destinations, physiological breaks, criminality, you name it.

Space is a merciless place. Just a bit too cold or too hot, just a little too much of one thing, or not enough, one disease or virus, just too much of the wrong kind of radiation, really just about anything wrong, and humans are dead dead dead.

Robots/drones controlled by ground crews just makes more sense overall. The only reason to send people into space directly is time lag/emergencies that can't be preprogramed methinks.

Robots/ Drones if well designed do almost every job in space better than humans can.

Perhaps the most elite of scientists/ engineers will be in place to run the equipment on some of the planets makes sense (similar to that guy in "Moon", small groups to run/ operate mostly automated AI assisted complexes of machines and robots/ drones), but besides that robots/ drones makes more sense in every other capacity.

(Or like in Alien/Aliens, the Nostromo/Sulaco/Terraforming Megaplex, huge complexes/ships mostly composed of computers/robots/machinery, with a skeleton crew to handle emergencies the computers/robots can't be preprogrammed for.)
 
Just my thoughts.

Would you really like to live the rest of your life in a small cramped tin without ever breathing fresh air, drink water that isn't distilled from your own urine, or eat food that isn't vacuum packed? How much deltaV/energy is wasted keeping populations fed/warm/breathing and most of all entertained for years most of which is downtime while they sleep/party/relax. Meanwhile robots/drones can go dormant when they aren't needed, or work 24/7 for years while they are needed without getting tired or lonely, etc.

Space is nice to visit, but it sucks to live your whole life there. I think that's why Qswitched imagined that in order for most of humanity to live in space, the Earth has to be unlivable.