Do competitive zero-sum games artificially bloat free market economies?

I probably don't know the right jargon to phrase this question appropriately. It stems from wondering about whether so-called "bullshit jobs" really do exist or not.

This question only makes sense if one generally accepts a somewhat classical view of free markets, in particular the hypothesis that in a free market, due to the mechanics of supply and demand and competition, the economy will generally evolve towards more efficient processes and hence generally grow, given labour and resources are available.

I generally find this to be quite an intuitive and reasonable hypothesis, yet I have recently been exposed to a potential pitfall in this view: the existence of competitive zero-sum games.

Consider for example a hypothetical economy which has two main branches: agriculture and meteorite mining. We suppose that agriculture is currently limited by available labor, meaning with more labor it has potential to grow, in a "real sense" of more food being available.

Meteorite mining is limited by the availability of meteorites, which fall at unpredictable times in unpredictable places. Our society has decided that whoever reaches the meteorite first with mining equipment obtains the mining rights. As a result, a competitive zero-sum game is created: mining companies need to be *first* at the meteorite. Here I want to emphasize that there is no real benefit to being first at the meteorite besides beating your competitors.

Sure, it should be beneficial to the economy to set up operations at the meteorite within a few hours rather than a few days, but we suppose that this benefit is negligible compared to the size of the "meteorite rushing" economy our competitive zero-sum game creates: companies need to compete with the agricultural sector for labor in order to scout for meteorites, and also need to have surplus mining equipment and expertise available throughout the realm.

As measured by GDP this additional large branch grows the economy, but in any real sense the economy shrinks because less labor is available for the agricultural sector, and the total output of the meteorrite mining industry is not increased. One could call the jobs created by the meteorite rushing branch "bullshit jobs".

Now you may say that the competition will cause the development of technologies which in the long run grow the economy but… that is a very indirect effect and it is well-conceivable that some competitive zero-sum games may cause the development of technologies which are mostly not beneficial to the economy in the long run.

You may also say that the law stating the first to develop mining operations obtains the mining rights is a form of "perverse incentives", but in that case I would conclude that our economy must be thoroughly penetrated by perverse incentives.

A more "real world" example would of course be the marketing and advertisement sector, which as far as I can tell is largely a competitive zero-sum game companies are forced to engage in to have a chance. Yes, it probably has benefits through increased price discovery and general customer scrutiny, but I am questioning if these are not negligible compared to the size of the sector.

Is our economy's GDP significantly inflated by engagement in competitive zero sum games that does not produce any "goods and services" that have value to society?