Your confusion comes from focusing too much on what happens at maturity.
This is the least important thing here.
Bonds have two ways of providing a return. The yield, and the price of the bond itself.
Lower yield means greater price of the bond. They are always inversely correlated.
Even lower yield means even greater price of the bond.
Because of worldwide policies, Its a bond bull market. The greatest bond bull market of all time and there is no exit.
Government creates new bonds at market price. Their independent Central Bank buys those bonds at market price giving newly created money to the government or traders. Market price is always a premium to the prior price. This action devalues the currency, otherwise known as causes inflation, otherwise known as people’s share in the currency stock is diluted.
So nobody needs to care about the yield. Nobody is thinking “well golly I’m going to use a few fractions of a dollar for the next 30 years” theyre thinking bonds to the fckin moon
Buy high sell higher directly to the central bank.
Benign attempts at economic stimulus have turned into a full blown currency war between monetary unions and nation states. The whole point is to get people to think “hm maybe my money isnt doing so well in a bank or in my mattress, maybe I should circulate it in risky investments” , and since people are so willing to pay for the privilege not to do that, the yields will go deeper negative. This prompts other monetary unions to cry foul and consider these actions unfair and uncompetitive, and so they do the same thing to devalue their currency to compete.
Any time you hear someone talk about responding to currency manipulators or reacting to the trade war by lowering rates or devaluing their own currency, just remember:
Bond. Bull. Market.