My EE degree is getting a bit dated, but I think that would work because you'd effectively be using the earth as a power resistor.

But by the time you've dropped the voltage potential of the strike, is it worth it for the smaller amount of energy you'd recover?

Maybe not at a single fixed point on the strike zone, but what about a ring at surface level? or even an earth submerged hemispherical sphere? Shouldn't there be a zone at which the peak available materials are capable of harvesting energy safely in a hemispherical shape within the earth around the strike zone? Then the harvested energy would be effectively "whatever reaches that zone to be absorbed" with the rest of it being resisted by the earth, no? Which given the energy in a lightning bolt it's hard to imagine is not "a lot".

These ideas seem too obvious to think that somebody hasn't already tried them and ruled them out though.