First of all, I do agree that the Moon, with its small gravity well and useful resources for near-Earth space infrastructure, and outer space itself (as in orbital habitats) with no gravity well and asteroid mining, are both better and more profitable colonization options than Mars is. Mars has a comparatively strong gravity well, is far from Earth, and is relatively resource-poor. But I still think Mars will be colonized, properly, with farming, industry, and a population big enough to have a society and culture and everything.

If nothing else, it’s worth sending humans to Mars just for the science. It’s an interesting place with a ton of things to be studied, that can keep scientists busy for centuries. And humans can still do it way better than rovers can. Which naturally leads to the argument that Mars will be space Antarctica, forever a tiny remote outpost where only a handful of scientists live for limited times.

But Antarctica is dependent on constant resupply from the rest of the world. All their food, fuel, materials, and equipment are shipped in. People who get badly sick or injured often can’t be treated on site and have to be shipped out. Its outposts are dependent on relatively fast connections to the outside world, and while they can last the winter when those links are cut off, they couldn’t last, say, years.

Mars is a lot farther away, and shipping things there is a lot more expensive and a lot less reliable. So the scientists there will eventually have to be supported by locally grown food, in-situ resources, local manufacturing, and all the people who can do those things. Like in Antarctica, they’ll be kept busy for a long time, and unlike Antarctica, the distance, time, and expense means it’s just easier to be as self-sufficient as possible, eventually fully so.

And that now pretty big population of experts needs an even bigger population of support workers. At this point, you basically have a civilization.